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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

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Shelf. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




The First Church of the Frontiersmen. Page 35. 



Six Years on the Border; 



OR, 



SKETCHES OF FRONTIER LIFE. 



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BY 

MRS. J. B. RIDEOUT. 
'I 




PHILADELPHIA 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

1334 CHESTNUT STREET. 






fA 



COPYRIGHT, 1883, BY 

THE TRUSTEES OF THE 

PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION. 



ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 



lZ~3'6'0/(^ 



Westcott & Thomson, 
Stereotype rs and Electrotypers, Philada. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

First Experiences 5 

CHAPTER II. 
Looking for a Home 20 

CHAPTER III. 
The Cabin on the Prairie 32 

CHAPTER IV. 
Preaching in a Dug-out 44 

CHAPTER V. 
Frontier Desperadoes 54 

CHAPTER VI. 
Death and Dangers 65 

CHAPTER VII. 
What Liquor Does 80 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Penalty of Horse-stealing 94 

3 



4 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. 

PAGE 

A Hard Winter no 

CHAPTER X. 
Bridal and Death 126 

CHAPTER XI. 
Bad Indians 136 

CHAPTER XII. 
The Infidel 14S 

CHAPTER XIII. 
God's Discipline. . 154 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Death in the Home 166 

CHAPTER XV. 
A Blessed Harvest 179 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Shadow and Sunshine 185 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Fruits of Faithfulness 195 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Close of the Conflict 210 



SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 



CHAPTER I. 

FIRST EXPERIENCES. 

MY object in this narrative is to give 
my Eastern friends an idea of life 
on the Western plains — not such an idea 
as the tourist forms while riding over these 
great prairies in the swift-moving cars and 
stopping a few days in the different towns 
and villages, but such a one as is gained by 
those who live on the extreme border, and 
thus prepare the way not only for railroads 
and cities, but for civilization and good soci- 
ety. History tells us of the trials of our fore- 
fathers — their batding with sickness, cold 
and hunger, their deadly conflicts with the 
treacherous Indians — together with their 



6 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

firm, unshaken faith in the God whom they 
worshiped; but how many of their posterity 
whose names and labors of love are never 
written for the benefit of those who come 
after them have passed through sorrows 
and dangers as great as theirs ! 

In my quiet New England home, during 
my youthful days, I never dreamed of being 
a minister's wife or of passing through 
scenes which to many of my readers may 
seem incredible. But the young cannot see 
the path which God has marked out for 
them to walk in through this wilderness of 
life. After we have gone forward for a 
number of years, and then look back, how 
many exclaim, '' He has led me in a way 
which I knew not " ! 

In the month of August, 1871, I left my 
Eastern home, friends and many surround- 
ings that were dear, especially the graves of 
loved ones, which I never expected to see 
again, and started for the Far West — a jour- 
ney of twenty-five hundred miles. But it 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. 



was not without scattering tears over places 
which memory held so dear, that I bade fare- 
well to friends ; and after weeping over the 
graves of my mother and darling babe, I 
turned my back upon the scenes of my 
childhood, and with my husband and two 
small children began my long and weari- 
some journey. 

After traveling day and night for ten 
days, I found myself beyond the clatter of 
engines and the sound of '' the church-going 
bell." But "Onward! Onward!" was our 
motto. We had heard of a village on the 
banks of a beautiful river, surrounded by 
a rich country fast filling up with intelligent 
people, but with no one to proclaim the glad 
tidings of salvation, and to that town we 
were going with bright hopes of happiness 
and usefulness. But long before we reached 
our destination my heart grew faint and my 
own native New England seemed dearer 
than ever before. Our conveyance was 
a litde open wagon drawn by two small 



8 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

ponies which were very unruly ; and the 
driver, on account of a bottle which pro- 
jected from the pocket of his old brown 
jacket, was no better than the ponies. 

There were many deep ravines and 
streams without bridges to cross, and sev- 
eral times I sprang from the wagon, with 
my little girl of two years in my arms, to 
see our trunks go tumbling down into some 
ditch. The driver seemed to be perfectly 
unconcerned over our misfortunes, and oc- 
casionally would say, " You'll soon get used 
to this if you stay in the West." This was 
early in the month of September, and the 
dry grass in many places was much higher 
than the horses' heads, and as far as I could 
see in every direction this dry brown coat 
of nature was waving in the wind, which 
blew furiously, and to me seemed almost 
unearthly on account of its parching heat. 
Occasionally we would pass a little cabin, 
but no barns, no fences, no orchards, no 
springs ; and, what gave the country a more 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. 9 

desolate appearance, there were no trees 
except a few dwarfed cottonwoods, which 
scarcely lifted their topmost branches above 
the ravines in which they stood. 

Being very thirsty, I called at one cabin, 
and as I looked in I started back with hor- 
ror. There were three or four invalids ly- 
ing on blankets which were spread on the 
ground ; for the cabin had no floor and 
was so open that a cat could enter between 
the logs. The woman of the house said, 
" We are all sick here." I asked for a drink 
of water, and she pointed to a ravine in 
which stood a stagnant pool, and said, 
"There is the water we use." I turned 
away thinking I could never drink such 
water as that. But as I saw the driver 
dipping it up in his old hat and drinking 
it, I recalled what he had said before : 
" You'll soon get used to this if you stay 
in the West." 

At last we reached the town of which we 
had read such glowing accounts before 



lO SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

leaving the East. My hands were brown, 
my face blistered and my eyes red, and as 
I stood in the village which had appeared 
to my imagination in so many different 
forms (but always with beautiful houses, 
sidewalks and level streets), feeling home- 
sick and discouraged, I looked around and 
counted the buildings. One blacksmith's 
shop, one small store, one dwelling-house 
and two little cabins, and all surrounded 
by the same brown, rustling mantle which 
covered the whole region. As I looked 
for the beautiful river, I saw a bed of sand 
half a mile away, with a little stream, shal- 
low and muddy as it is at that season of 
the year, finding its way through the sand. 
There was no hotel, but in one of the cab- 
ins we found a shelter; it contained but 
one room, and had no floor. Besides the 
family, consisting of man and wife and a 
daughter nearly grown, there were three 
gentlemen-boarders, and all down sick. 
The first night we slept in that cabin I 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. II 

thought of the one represented by Rich- 
ardson in his " Beyond the Mississippi," 
where a man stands in the door saying to 
a stranger who desires admittance, " We 
are about full here." I soon began to learn 
what border life meant. 

My husband began to preach the gospel 
and visit the sick. It being the malarial 
season of the year, there was scarcely a 
well person to be found in all the region. 
Whole families were suffering at once ; so 
that one could not wait on the others. I 
went three miles from home with my hus- 
band to attend the funeral of a child. The 
mother was a refined, educated woman from 
Boston, and she said she had not been 
out of bed for six weeks, during which 
time all of her children had been sick and 
two of them had died, and not a woman 
had before been to see her. Her husband 
had been sufferinof with the chills until he 
was scarcely able to wait on his sick fam- 
ily. It is sad to see a whole family sick 



12 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

even when surrounded by kind friends to 
care for and comfort them ; but when fa- 
ther and mother and children are all sick in 
a strange land, and surrounded by invalids, 
God alone can sustain them. 

In the midst of these scenes of poverty 
and suffering, where such an opportunity 
for usefulness opened before him, and 
where one possessed of health and strength 
felt such animation and delight in trying to 
relieve sufferers, my husband was taken 
suddenly and violently ill with a fever. 
What to do I did not know. A physician 
could not be had. One had just died with 
a congestive chill, and the other was very 
ill. I did the best I could. For nearly two 
weeks my husband had a burning fever 
day and night, during which time I endeav- 
ored to trust in the Lord ; and after caring 
for my husband, I did what I could for oth- 
ers. After he began to recover health 
he gained very rapidly. In four weeks 
from the time that he was taken ill he was 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. 1 3 

able to walk around, and in a short time he 
began to visit the sick and preach the gos- 
pel " from house to house." 

The nights were now cold and frosty, and 
people who survived the scourge were 
in most cases convalescent. In a short 
time we moved into a cabin by ourselves, 
and my husband commenced driving a 
team for wages, preaching every Sabbath 
in the different cabins. We were now 
comparatively comfortable, and were quite 
happy until the next spring. 

Early in the month of April my husband 
was helping a neighbor plant corn, when, 
he said, all at once the hoe became so 
heavy he could scarcely lift it ; his head 
pained, his arms were tired and his back 
ached. He finally concluded that he must 
be sick, but he continued to work until his 
teeth began to chatter, and he knew he 
was having a chill. He then came home, 
and after shakinof for an hour or more he 
had a burning fever, and was quite sick 



14 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

during the day. After this he had a chill 
nearly every other day for six weeks, until 
he was reduced in flesh almost to a skele- 
ton, and was not able to do any labor. By 
this time our money was all gone, and 
about the first of June we had eaten our 
last morsel of bread for breakfast. We 
did not know where our dinner — if we 
were to have any — was to come from. My 
husband took a small sack and went from 
house to house among those to whom he 
had been preaching during the winter, 
askinor for the loan of a little cornmeal 
(cornmeal and buffalo-meat were our prin- 
cipal articles of food), but late in the after- 
noon he returned with his sack as empty 
as when he had left home in the morning. 
He was so faint, weary and hungry that he 
lay down to rest. Our little children, who 
had been waiting patiently for his return, 
looked at the empty sack with much disap- 
pointment, and without saying a word 
walked away. 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. I 5 

While he was resting many thoughts 
passed through my mind. I thought of 
leaving such a place of poverty and 
wretchedness, but we had no money. I 
thought of writing to some friend, but we 
would all die before I could get an answer. 
I then thought of the precious promise of 
Jesus: "Ask, and ye shall receive;" and I 
knew my husband was at the same time 
looking to our heavenly Father. Shortly 
after he arose from the bed, stepped from 
the cabin and walked over to the store. 
The man who kept it was away, but my 
husband told his wife that he was out of 
bread, and she pointed to a pile of flour 
and said, " Help yourself." I was surprised 
when I saw him return with a sack of flour, 
for I knew that the rule at the store was 
" Strictly no credit." We thanked God for 
his mercy in that our prayers were an- 
swered and we not forsaken. 

From this time my husband began to 
improve, but continued to have an occa- 



1 6 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

sional chill, which kept him weak during 
the whole summer. 

About the last of the month he heard of 
a town springing up in a very beautiful 
part of the country, forty miles farther 
west, and he resolved to go, if possible, 
to that place. He heard that there were 
some capitalists at the new town, and he 
thought that if he were once there he could 
get work to do and thus maintain his fam- 
ily. So he started away from home with 
only six cents, which was all the money we 
had. Our flour was nearly gone. I divid- 
ed what was left, wrapping a loaf of bread 
in a paper for him to take and keeping a 
little for my children and myself. When 
he returned, he gave me the following ac- 
count of his journey, trials and success : 

"After traveling all day, riding part of 
the distance on a load of lime and walking 
the remainder, I stopped for the night in a 
little unoccupied house. I had divided my 
food with a hungry man during the day, 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. 1/ 

and my bread was all gone. I had no 
blankets, but slept on the floor, using my 
boots for a pillow. Morning came and 
the sun was shining brightly, but I was in 
a strange land without anything to eat and 
with only six cents in money. I started on 
my journey ; but, feeling faint, weary and 
almost discouraged, I went back to the 
place where I had slept, and after I had 
closed the door I went to one corner of the 
room and fell on my knees, determined not 
to arise until the load of sorrow and care 
should be removed from my poor de- 
pressed soul. I resolved to cast my bur- 
den on the Lord, for I knew that he was 
willing to bless and sustain me. I have 
often preached from the text 'There is a 
Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,' 
and I endeavored to claim that promise 
and look to that Friend for help. 

"After I had unbosomed my sorrows to 
Jesus, and told him I was sick and hungry 
and a poor wanderer in a strange land and 



1 8 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

had not money enough to pay for my break- 
fast, my soul was filled with peace. I felt 
him to be very near, and I knew he would 
help me. I started again, and had gone 
only a short distance when I saw a man 
coming from another direction. He hailed 
me and asked me if I knew the way to the 
new town. I told him that I did, and was on 
my way to that place. The stranger said 
he had a team, and if he could sell his load 
of meal at the store a little farther on he 
would give me a passage. I felt certain in 
my mind that he would sell the meal ; and 
he did. I told him 1 was sick and preferred 
to lie down in the wagon, and as I closed 
my eyes to thank God for answering my 
prayer I heard the crack of a whip, and we 

were off for the town of H . I would 

have purchased a loaf of bread, but I had 
learned that there was a toll-bridge on the 
way, a little beyond the place where I spent 
the night, and I expected to have to pay 
five cents to cross the bridge ; but, as the 



FIRST EXPERIENCES. 1 9 

man with whom I was riding paid the toll 
for his team, I was allowed to go over with 
him free. 

"After going a short distance his boy 
looked around and asked me if I did not 
want a lunch. He said he had some corn- 
bread and molasses, and, bringing it forth, 
told me to help myself It was now near 
the middle of the day, and I enjoyed that 
corn-bread and molasses as much as though 
I had been partaking of the bounties of a 
king's table. ' This poor man cried, and 
the Lord heard him and saved him out of 
all his troubles.' " 



CHAPTER II. 

LOOKING FOR A HOME. 

THAT night," continued my husband, 
" we camped out on the wild plains, 
and the following day, about 1 1 a. m., we 
were at the new town. But how disap- 
pointed was I again ! There were two 
stores, a blacksmith's shop, and a short 
distance away a little house. I asked 
every man I could find if he wanted to 
hire a man to do any kind of work, but 
they all said * No ;' and, judging from their 
looks, they had no money to pay for work, 
or for anything but bread and quinine. 
After a while I found one man who said 
he had a well to finish ; it was then twenty 
feet deep and some water in the bottom. 
I told him I would work in the well for 

20 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 21 

fifty cents a day ; but after looking me in 
the face I think he concluded I was not 
able to do such labor, and said he thought 
he would not employ me. I was much dis- 
appointed and wished myself back in N 

with my family, and concluded to get back 
if I could. I accordingly found a man who 
was going with a team to within four miles 

of N , and I asked him for a passage ; 

but he refused to take me, as I had not 
money to pay him. 

'' I then walked away from the little town 
— perhaps a quarter of a mile — and in the 
tall, waving grass I knelt down and asked 
my heavenly Father to take care of his 
poor wandering child. After spending a 
few moments in prayer, my mind was com- 
posed, for I knew my Father would still 
care for me. I then returned peacefully 
to the town, and went to the little house 
before mentioned and asked for five cents' 
worth of bread; and the woman of the 
house gave me such a loaf for five cents 



22 S/X YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

as I had never before known to be sold for 
twice that amount of money. I took that, 
and gave it to the man and boy who had 
given me my conveyance. 1 then told 
them if they would let me have some 
cornmeal from their wagon I would get 
some bread baked (they were not very 
good cooks), and they said they would be 
very glad if I would do so. I then took 
some meal and went back to the house 
where I got the bread, and told the lady if 
she would bake me some bread I would 
chop wood to pay her, as I had no money. 
She said she would be glad to do so, as her 
husband was sick. 

" I had worked only a few minutes when 
a little girl came to the door and said her 
papa wanted me to come in. I walked in, 
and the man — an elderly man — said, ' You 
are sick, and not fit to be working out 
there in the hot sun. Sit down and rest 
until dinner is ready.' If any one had 
been near, they might have heard me say 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 23 

' God bless you, old man !' I sat down in 
a rocking-chair for the first time in the 
West, and in a few moments I felt well 
acquainted with the strangers, who gave 
me much valuable information about the 
country and seemed to be very kind in- 
deed. 

" In a short time dinner was ready, and 

for the first time after leaving N I sat 

down at a table and partook of a good, 
wholesome meal. My friend then said I 
could take his horse and look around over 
the country. I thanked him, and soon, seat- 
ed in a neat saddle, was moving over the 
prairie. After passing several cabins I saw 
one made of logs from which the bark had 
been peeled. It looked neat and clean. 
Seeing a man working at the door, I rode 
up and asked him if there were any vacant 
claims near his place. Without answering 
my question, he asked, ' Have you a fam- 
ily ?' I told him I had a wife and two 
children. He then asked me if I did not 



24 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

want to buy a claim. I told him I did not, 
because I had no money except one cent. 
He lauofhed. and asked me where I was 
from. I told him from Maine. ' Is that 
so ?' said he. ' I am from Vermont.' I 
told him I thouoht he was a Yankee when 
he first spoke. He then said, 'There was 
a ofentleman came out here last March, 
took a claim, hired a man to break five 
acres and plant it in corn — and the claim 
is a good one, with ten acres of timber ; and 
a stream of water runs through it, so there 
will always be plenty of water — and then 
he went back for his family, and a few of 
us neighbors have been holding his claim 
for him. The other day we received a let- 
ter from him saying his wife was sick and 
he had given up coming West to live, and 
we could let some man with a family have 
his claim. Now,' he continued, ' I will show 
you the claim, and I would advise you to 
go right on and take possession of it at 
once.' He then saddled his horse, and 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 2$ 

together we rode down the stream more 
than a mile, and came to a beautiful piece 
of corn — the best sod-corn I had seen. 
He showed me the corners of the quarter- 
section, and told me there were good 
neighbors on every side, and asked me 
how I liked it. I replied that it was ex- 
cellent. He then said he would help me 
build a cabin and let me have his team to 
go after my family. I thanked him, and 
told him I would be at his place next morn- 
ing; and then we went back to the town. 
To my joy, I met a young man just from 

N , with whom I was acquainted. He 

said I must stop with him that night, as he 
had a camping-outfit along with him. I 
told him of my good fortune and that I 
wanted to write to my wife, but I only had 
one cent. He very kindly assisted me in 
purchasing a postage-stamp. I then went 
into the store and asked the clerk if I could 
write a letter. He said, 'Yes, certainly,' 
and gave me a sheet of paper and en- 



26 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

velope. But I could scarcely write for joy, 
I felt so much better than I did in the 
morning, when the stranger refused to 
give me a passage back to N . 

" That night I listened to the conversa- 
tion of several old frontiersmen who were 
sitting around the store, for the night was 
beautiful and the air was fragrant with the 
scent of a thousand varieties of wild flow- 
ers. I listened to those men's talk about 
the deer and the buffalo and the wolves, 
then numerous in that region. They also 
talked about the country — said it was the 
richest land in the world, and they thought 
the country was settling up with an excel- 
lent class of people, and they would soon 
have schools and churches. I concluded 
that the people were far superior to those 

at N , and after thanking God for his 

mercy and divine guidance I went to sleep, 
and slept sweetly until morning. 

" In the morning, after a breakfast of 
bread, bacon and coffee, and a pleasant 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 2/ 

little chat with my friend from N , I 

started for the cabin of the good Yankee 
who had been so kind to me the day be- 
fore. I found him all ready, with his horses 
harnessed to his wagon ; and we were soon 
in the timber cutting and drawing out logs 
for my cabin. We cut logs about six inches 
in diameter and twelve feet long, and peeled 
off the bark. As he was a good axeman 
and strong and well, we soon succeeded in 
putting up the walls of a house. During 
this time I was kindly entertained by my 
friend and his family. Every night we 
read the Bible and prayed together, the 
doing of which seemed to unite us more 
firmly in the bonds of Christian love." 

While my husband was thus learning the 
rough ways of the border I was living in 
awful suspense. I had plenty for myself 
and my children to eat. After he had gone 
away the merchant's wife was very kind, 
and seemed almost like a mother to me. 
But I knew the dangers were many away 



28 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

out on the plains, and that in the region he 
was exploring no man's life was safe. The 
red men were on the alert for scalps ; the 
border desperadoes lived by murder and 
theft; there were bears and wolves and 
the deadly miasma ; and the scarcity of 
bread and water seemed dreadful to me. 
I could only wait and pray. 

After a week of this melancholy endur- 
ance my aching heart was lightened on re- 
ceipt of the following letter : 

" My Dear Wife : I have had a hard 
time since I left. I have suffered for 
bread, and yesterday, while riding over 
the plains, what would I have given for 
one moment at our old spring in Maine ! 
I kept the six cents you gave me until I 
reached here this morning, when I paid out 
five for bread, and have just borrowed two 
cents to enable me to purchase a postage- 
stamp. Do not be discouraged : I am not. 
I believe we shall come out all right yet. 
I had a slight chill the day I left, but am 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 29 

feeling quite comfortable now, though not 
very strong. I have some prospects be- 
fore me which are good, but we have been 
disappointed so many times I dare not say 
much about it to you just yet. Do not 
look for me until I come. Take good 
care of the children, and trust in Him who 
feeds the ravens and notices the fall of a 
sparrow." 

After reading this letter, like Paul before 
entering Rome " I thanked God and took 
courage." 

Three days after this, on the 4th of July, 
my husband returned looking better than 
when he left. The kind man who had as- 
sisted him in building his cabin offered to 
lend him his team, but my husband, know- 
ing the route to be infested with Indians, 
and being unarmed, concluded that he 
would rather come on horseback. The 
horse he rode was blind and could not go 
very fast. On the way he saw a party 
of Indians coming toward him ; he knew he 



30 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

could not keep out of their reach, so he 
looked to God and said, " Thy grace has 
brought me safe thus far : thy grace will 
bring me home." The Indians came very 
near, and one raised his gun and pointed 
it toward him ; but in a moment they 
turned their ponies and rode off in an- 
other direction. 

After this we soon made arrancrements 
to move to our new home. A neighbor 
who had a good team and was well armed 
was engaged to take us through, and we 
were to pay him in wood and in other arti- 
cles which we could not move. The nieht 
before we were to start my husband came 
in and said, " I do not know what we shall 
do to-morrow ; the river is up, and we 
shall have to cross with our load in the 
ferry-boat." (This was a different and 
nearer route than the one he had traveled 
when going before.) " I have no money 
to pay the ferriage ; and then we must 
have something to eat on the way, and I 



LOOKING FOR A HOME. 3 1 

would like to have a pound of nails and 
a board, to make a door for our cabin. 
If I had five dollars, I could get along 
nicely." Just then he said it came to his 
mind that when in Maine he gave a poor 
minister whose son was very sick five dol- 
lars, and the Lord had said he that gives 
to the poor lends to him ; and he prayed : 
" Lord, help us." At that moment the mer- 
chant over the way, who was considered by 
many to be the most selfish man in the 
place, came in, and after talking a few 
moments and wishing us good luck he 
opened his pocket-book and handed my 
husband something. It was quite dark 
in the cabin, and my husband said, " What 
is this ?" and the old man said, " That is 
something to help you along to-morrow ;" 
and stepped out, saying, " Good-night." 
To our great joy, we found that the five 
dollars had come ; and we knew it was 
God who sent it. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE CABIN ON THE PRAIRIE. 

THE next morning we were early on 
the way to our new home. We 
started early, because we did not want to 
camp out on the wild plains between the 
two settlements. The day was very hot, 
and, although I was seated on the top of 
the load, the aroma of flowers, the bound- 
ing deer and the skulking cayote, the wild 
sunflowers bowing before the breeze, with 
beautiful birds singing in their branches, one 
after another claimed my attention ; and, 
as no Indians appeared in sight, the day 
passed away quite pleasantly. The sun 
went down long before we reached the 
settlement, and with much dread we 
stopped in the open country for the night, 

32 



THE CABIN ON THE PRAIRIE. 33 

but on account of weariness caused by the 
long day's ride we lay down on the ground 
and slept soundly until morning. 

The next day, about ten o'clock, we 
reached the cabin of our good friends. 
Here I was received so kindly that I felt 
at home at once. The good woman of the 
house said I should not move into our 
cabin until the roof was on. As soon as 
I met her I knew by the expression of her 
countenance and the warm grasp of her 
hand that I had met a friend ; and if ever 
any poor wanderer in the desert of this 
world felt the need of a friend, I did at 
that time. Nor was I disappointed, for 
soon we loved each other dearly. She 
called me her sister, and wrote to her 
friends in the East that she had found a 
sister. She was truly a refined Christian 
lady, 

" A perfect woman, nobly planned 
To warn, to comfort and command ; 
And yet a spirit, still and bright. 
With something of an angel light," 
3 



34 SIX YEAI^S ON THE BORDER. 

Here I was kindly entertained for a week, 
when I moved to my little home. Mrs. 

G , who seemed like a sister indeed, 

went with me, takinor several thinors for 
my comfort. 

To one coming directly from a wealthy 
country, the idea of living in such a place 
as our cabin would have been rejected with 
horror. It was a little over ten feet square 
inside, six feet high in the middle and four 
on each side, the roof covered with poles 
and grass and dirt, and in the middle a post 
resting on a flat stone supporting the roof. 
But it seemed orood to me because I needed 
a home, and I could say, " This is our own," 
like the man that lived near us in a " dug- 
out," who said to his boys as he looked at 
the walls of pure earth, " Boys, this is ours /" 
and my good sister, who, after camping out 
for several days and then moving into her 
little cabin as nieht came on and the wind 
beo-an to blow and the rain came down in 
torrents, said, "Oh, isn't this nice?" 



THE CABIN ON THE PRAIRIE. 35 

After we had lived in our new shelter a 
few days, there came a heavy thunder- 
storm in the night, and in the morning the 
water stood about six inches deep in our 
cabin. The prairie all around was flooded. 
Our bedding was wet and muddy, and the 
dirt floor remained damp for several days, 
making the cabin very unpleasant. 

My husband had by this time so far re- 
covered his health as to be able to work all 
the week and preach twice on the Sabbath. 
He commenced his labors in the grove, and 
the people, who were thirsting for the wa- 
ter of life, came for miles to hear the gospel. 
Occasionally an old frontiersman would say, 
" This seems like former times." One man, 
after listening attentively, said that was the 
flrst sermon he had heard for ten years. 
Little half-clad boys would sit under the 
trees, apparently drinking in every word, 
and many of the young people gave their 
hearts to the Saviour. 

But soon the malarial season commenced, 



3f' 



.S7,\ lA'./A'.V ON I'lir lU^Rl^EK. 



and my lHisl)an(l, my children ami myscll 
would all have a (hill the same day. K^\\(\ 
day we all lay vvilh a biirnim^ h'vcr Irom 
morniiii; iiiilil iiivdit, not one ol us able 
lo wail in\ ihc odicr. The sun shone with 
scorchini^' heal, and duiiui; ihc day we had 
no vvalcr dial was hi lo drink. W'c should 

not have sullcicd in 1 his way had M r. ( i 

and his wife been al home, bul ihal day 
ihcy wcrc^ absent with their ham. b'vciy 
day when they were al honu' ihcy came 
brin^ini; us hu'sh walcr hom ihcii' well, 
and very ollcn a baskcl ol lii;hl l)i('ad and 
butler and cake, and somclinu's a hide 
fruil, which ihc) had brouidu Irom lluir 
home in ihc b.asl. ( )nc day, carl)' in ihc 
month ol Scplcmbcr, ihcy did nol conu' 
as usual ; wc knew ihcy were home, Ixs 
cause we could see iheir waiM)n in ihe 
yard. The ne\l day, leariuL; ihat some- 
thing was wroni;', my husband wciU lo 
iheir cabin, and lound ihem both sick; Mr. 
G had a burniui' lexci' and was in e.\- 



THE CABIN ON THE PRAIRIE. 37 

treme pain, and my good sister was lying 
in die bed unable to help herself in the 
least. My husband hastened back for me 
and then sprang on one of their horses 
and started for a physician. When the 

physician arrived, he said Mr. G had 

a very serious attack of bilious fever and 
his wife had paralysis. After this, for three 
weeks, we both stayed with our friends and 
cared for them day and night. In a few 
days the physician told my husband it 
was very doubtful if either of them would 

recover, but in three weeks Mr. G was 

much better and able to wait on his wife a 
little, and we returned home with the under- 
standing that my husband would visit them 

every night and morning.- But Mr. G 

continued to gain in strength, and in a few 

weeks was well. Mrs. G , however, was 

not able to get out of her bed until the 
next spring. 

During the three weeks that we took 
care of them it seemed strange that my 



3^ SJX Yh,AJ<S ON THE hOKDEK. 

hu>sband, my children and myself were all 
crjTnydir<itw(^]y well; neither of us had a 
chill during this time, while most of the 
pf-jjjAt in the vicinity had suffered very 
much, and several had died. 

After we moved into our cabin we were 
frequently visited by larg^: snakes. My 
husband killed one almost seven feet long. 
They often came into the cabin, and even 
dropped down from the roof to our table. 
One night I felt something crawl over my 
bare foot; the next morning I killed it. Jt 
was a rattlesnake with four rattles. ^'Jne 
of our neighbors slept on the prairie, and in 
the morning he found a very large rattle- 
snake coiled close to bis side. People were 
quit':: ofu^n bitten by these reptiles, but sel- 
dom died from the effects, as most persons 
kept an antidote always at hand. I became 
so accustomed tf> the peculiar buzz of t,}j<: rat- 
tlesnakes that it did not alarm me very much. 
I have often killed them, and have laughed 
to see ladies just from the Mast run and 



THE CABlJf Ojr THE PRAIRIE, 39 

scream when meedng a snake ot the most 
harmless kind. A lady who lived near us 
saw her baby, about nine months old, play- 
ing with a botde ; on picking- it up she saw 
a litde ratdesnake coiled in it. Upon in- 
quiring how it came there, the older bo\-s 
said they drove it into the botde and corked 
it up> tor they knew it would amuse Frankie; 
and they then told their mother they had 
several ^'lariatted" out in die held. We 
had a dog that hunted snakes and killed 
them wherever he could tind them; but 
in a litde while the poor creature became 
ver\" stupid and badly swollen around the 
head and neck, and after several days of 
suttering he died. 

When I had returned home from taking 
care of my friends I often telt ver>~ gloomy 
and as nearly discouraged as woman ever 
becwmie. ^[y neighbors were nearly all sick, 
and my husband was working fr>r food and 
clothing during the week and away preach- 
ing everv Sabbath ^^^f- T endea\x>rei^ r-^ 



40 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

overcome my despondency by working very 
hard when I was able to work ; and when I 
was not able, I would read my Bible and 
put my trust in my heavenly Father. 

One day about the last of October I was 
sitting in our little cabin with my children 
when I heard some one speak outside. I 
opened the door, and to my horror I saw 
five Indians sitting on their ponies in a 
nude state, their bodies painted in various 
colors. In their hands they had rifles, and 
to their saddles were hanging bows, arrows 
and knives. The sides of their heads were 
shaved, and on the tops the hair stood erect. 
They looked at me, muttering something. 
I fastened the door and prayed to God 
to take care of me. After holdincr a con- 
sultation for some time they filled their 
blankets with our corn, then rode off to- 
ward the unsettled plains ; and I can assure 
my readers I was not sorry to see them go. 
The next day I saw a very large party — 
more than a hundred — of them coming 



THE CAIilN ON 'J/IIi PKAJh'/E. 4 1 

rig'ht from iIk: Indian 'JV^rritory, which was 
only half a mile away. I fastf:nf:d tli^: door 
secundy, took my twind^aLi^js in my arms 
to kf:o[>» \\\i\\x\ rpiif^t, anr], with th^: othf:r 
chilrlr^rn nf:sth"n^ close: to my side:, waite:d 
in anxifjty anrl rlrcad ; fr^r J did not know 
what th(:y would do. d hf:y surroundr^d 
the cabin, pounded on the: floor anrl tried 
to push it r;pf:n. They rr:mained a loni:^ 
while, talked very loudly and seemed to 
be disputing with one another. binally 
thr:y rfxle away. I was covered with pr:r- 
spi ration, my heart beat very fast, and it 
was a long^ time before I dared open tlv: 
door; but when I looked out, they were 
not to f)e seen. 

A family consisting of husband, wife*and 
seven children lived out in the open air 
near us all summ.er with nr;thing but a 
wagon-cover for a shelter. In the autumn 
my husband helped the man build such a 
cabin as ours, in which they lived rliiring 
the winter. At meal-time each took his 



42 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

piece of corn-bread and buffalo-meat as he 
could get it ; sometimes they had bread 
and no meat, and sometimes meat and no 
bread. At night the three oldest boys 
would lie down by the side of a hay- 
stack, and the father would take the fork 
and cover them with hay. The remainder of 
the family spread their bedding on the dirt 
floor, and thus had a shelter. This man 
and his wife were intelligent and educated 
people from the State of New York. The 
next summer they raised a good crop of 
wheat, and were soon doing well. 

During the winter it was extremely cold; 
for over a month the wind blew almost in- 
cessantly from the north, and several inches 
of Snow lay on the ground. There were 
some weeks in which but few dared to 
venture away from their own premises. 
Several froze to death ; one poor fellow 
was found stiff in his bed. Some who 
were out hunting never returned, and 
numbers were so badly frozen that they 



THE CABIN ON THE PRAIRIE. 43 

died nearly as soon as they came back. 
While returning, one party of seven was 
overtaken by a dreadful storm. One lay 
down and said he could go no farther, when 
a young fellow took his revolver and told 
him that if he had given up he would put 
an end to his suffering at once. The man 
concluded to make another effort ; and 
when they arrived at the settlement, the 
man who had rallied his comrade was so 
badly frozen that he went on crutches for 
six months, while the others received but 
slight injuries. 



CHAPTER IV. 

PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. 

ONE of my husband's preaching-places 
was a " dug-out." On the Lord's day 
when the cold winds would be sweeping 
over the prairie, waving the dry grass 
and swaying the leafless branches of the 
Cottonwood and the elm, and when the 
ringing tongues of ten thousand bells 
were speaking with clear, musical voices 
from the high steeples of costly churches, 
calling large congregations to assemble 
within clean and decorated walls, where 
the sun smiled sweetly through windows 
of stained glass, to sit on cushioned seats 
with costly carpets beneath their feet, to 
listen to God's word, — a goodly number 
of rough, hardworking frontiersmen, with 

44 



PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. 45 

their wives and children, would gather in 
this damp, dark abode of poverty to listen 
to the same gospel and worship the same 
God, in the name of the same Jesus, look- 
ing for the same reward beyond the grave 
and beyond the stars. If God heard the 
prayers of his ancient followers when in 
the dens and caves of the earth, and in the 
catacombs beneath ancient Rome, he cer- 
tainly can be sought and found in a "dug- 
out" away on the Western border. But, 
ye who worship in costly churches, think 
of such a sanctuary as this : no windows, 
and sometimes so dark that the minister 
can scarcely see his congregation, the 
floor of earth and the walls and roof the 
same, and, instead of cushioned seats, 
round poles. But in just such churches 
as this are blessed thousands of souls who 
will doubtless sing praises to Him who 
brought them " out of great tribulation, 
having washed their robes and made 
them white in the blood of the Lamb." 



46 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

One of the places where my husband 
preached was in the house of the man 
whose wife had sold him the loaf of bread ; 
another was six miles up the stream, at the 
post-ofhce ; and another was in a town of a 
hundred inhabitants, eight miles west. In 
this latter place there was but one religious 
man, and he was the only physician in the 
vicinity. My husband, after walking from 
eight to sixteen miles and preaching three 
times during the Sabbath, would sometimes 
be too tired to walk home, and under such 
circumstances he would sleep in the doc- 
tor's office, on the floor, using a large book 
for a pillow. But quite frequently, when 
the stream was frozen over or was not 
too high for him to wade, he would walk 
home after the evening service. Som.e- 
times, while fording this stream, the run- 
nine ice was so thick that it was both dif- 
ficult and dangerous to cross. 

During the winter my husband had saved 
enough to purchase a cow and to partly 



PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. 47 

pay for a team. He accordingly bought a 
pair of horses and a wagon, and com- 
menced to haul lumber from W to 

C , a distance of sixty miles through 

an unsettled region. There were four 
large streams without bridges to be 
crossed. The load which a pair of horses 
could draw on the level prairie would make 
three loads to draw through these streams 
and up the steep banks ; consequently, he 
would be delayed two hours at each of 
these streams. One very cold morning he 
had crossed the first, but, the second being 
larger and partly frozen over, he expected 
to have a hard time in getting safely to the 
other side with his load. But about the 
time he came to the stream an old man 
who was just moving into the country came 
along. He had a pair of large horses, and, 
seeing my husband with such a heavy load, 
asked him if he did not need help in cross- 
ing the stream. My husband said he did, 
and would be very thankful if he would as- 



48 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

sist him. The old man then fastened his 
horses in front of my husband's team, and 
they passed through the stream without 
difficulty. In like manner he helped him 
over the other streams, and said it was 
a pleasure to render such assistance, for 
he had been in like circumstances himself. 
That time my husband came home sooner 
than usual, and said he hoped he could 
some day recompense the old man for his 
kindness. But the Lord is not unmindful 
of such deeds of love to his children, nor 
will he permit the doers of them to go 
without reward. 

Along this dreary route the prairie- wolves 
— called " coyotes " — were very numerous ; 
sometimes he would see them scattered 
around over the prairie in large numbers. 
Once they surrounded him on all sides ; 
his dog was frightened, and remained un- 
der the wagon. At another time he saw a 
large gray wolf but a short distance from 
him; he thought there might be others 



PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. 49 

near, and drove very fast. The wolf fol- 
lowed him for several miles. 

But the cold winter soon passed away, 
and the green grass and the beautiful flow- 
ers covered the black and charred prairie, 
over which the fire had swept, burning off 
the old grass ; and the trees put on their 
beautiful garment of green, and thus 
fringed the stream which meandered 
through the great meadow. The birds, 
especially the lark, sang very sweetly, and 
I thought it was the most beautiful country 
in the world. 

In the beginning of spring I went to see 
my sister-friend, and she said with a smile 
as I entered her cabin, " I believe I shall 
get well now, for I can feel a tingle in my 
fingers." All these long months she had 
been more helpless than an infant, not 
able to move in the least ; but she was 
right. She now began to improve, and 
in the month of May was able to walk 
out a little ; soon she came to visit me, 



50 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

and I was quite happy. I had also formed 
the acquaintance of another lady who be- 
came very dear to me. She had just come 
from Kentucky, was a good Christian, a 
member of the church and an active work- 
er in the cause of the Master. Her friends 
had nicknamed her " Duck." I highly ap- 
preciated her frequent visits and cheerful 
conversation, and was always glad to see 
her coming to our cabin. 

Now on Sunday my husband would go 
to his different appointments on horseback, 
which made the duties of the holy day 
more cheerful and pleasant. Instead of 
returning at eleven o'clock weary and with 
sore and wet feet, he now came back an 
hour earlier cheerful and happy. But he 

had no saddle. The people at C , the 

town eight miles to the westward, said it was 
too bad for a man to ride on horseback so 
far to preach for them without any saddle, 
so they found and repaired an old one that 
had been thrown away, and one Sabbath, 



PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. $1 

after he had preached to them, they gave 
him the saddle ; and that old saddle did him 
good service for a long time. This was the 
first remuneration of an earthly kind he 
had received for preaching the gospel to 
these poor frontier settlers, and it might 
also be considered the first real token of 
their appreciation. In a short time he de- 
cided to engage wholly in the work which 
he so dearly loved. A church was organ- 
ized at C as the nucleus of a^great 

spiritual harvest -field. The church con- 
sisted of eleven members, and my friend 
from Kentucky was one of them. 

We sold one of our horses and his har- 
ness, paid what we owed for the team, and 
had a little left to live on until July, when 
we received from the Presbyterian Board 
of Home Missions our first quarter's salary, 
which was one hundred and twenty-five 
dollars. During this summer we contin- 
ued to live in our little cabin : it was 
kitchen, dining-room, parlor, bedroom and 



52 SJX YEARS IN THE BORDER. 

Study. My husband and oldest boy slept 
on the floor. The snakes made us an oc- 
casional visit, but were not so troublesome 
as they had been the summer before, as we 
had ploughed around, and so had a better 
chance to see them before they reached 
our cabin than while we were so closely 
surrounded by the dense forest of wild 
blue grass and sunflower stalks. The 
former in many places were eight, while 
the latter were twelve, feet high. 

In the autumn we concluded to move to 

C . The day we left, my dear friend 

Mrs. G came to our cabin and said 

she did not see how she could have me 
leave ; although she knew it was best for 
us, yet she did not know what she would 
do without me. We agreed to visit each 
other as often as we possibly could. When 
she kissed me good-bye, she bathed my 
face with tears, and, while she wept to 
have me go, I knew I should never have 
another friend more true or dear. 



PREACHING IN A DUG-OUT. 53 

About this time we received our first 
missionary-box. The articles were mostly 
new and of an excellent quality. This 
box came in a time of need ; for, had it 
not been sent, we would have suffered 
for clothing during the winter. 



I 



CIIArXKR V. 

FKONTIEK nESPEKADOES. 

T was in the moiUh of OctobcM* that we 
moved to our new home in C . 



]\ly twin-boys were a year okl, and they 
looked so much ahke that I often mistook 
one for the other. Real young- Westerners 
they were, born and initiated into the 
rouoh life of the frontier. We moved 
into a little house with only one room, but 
it had a floor and was ceiled wdth boards, 
and it seemed like a palace. The rent we 
had to pay was eight dollars a month. 
Knowino- that we could not live on our 
small salary and pay such a rent, we 
concluded to build a house of our own. 
We moved into our own home after two 
months, having pardy paid for it. This 



54 



I'R ON 7 /A /' /) EUPI-: KA Ij O ES. 5 5 

housf: had two rooms and a ^(ood flrK^r, 
but b<;lw^:'':n my four liltl'': children and 
the told winds that bU^w across \}i\<i 
prairif: thcrf: was only one thickness of 
siding. Though the winter was not so 
cold as the previrjus one had been, yet we 
had some storms that were very disagree- 
able, and on several mornings our floor 
was white with snow. 

During the winter a great many of the 
poor settlers who had been there just long 
enough to spend all their money and not 
raise any crop except a little corn suffered 
very much. One poor Scotchman, whose 
wife had died and left him with a family of 
young children, and who lived in a dark 
and damp '-dug-out'' on the bank of the 
stream, was an object of pity .such as is 
seldom seen in any country. Not only 
was he himsedf sick, but also all of his 
children ; and, being destitute of food and 
clothing, their sufferings were almost be- 
yond imagination. My husband called at 



56 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

one cabin, and a man at the door told him 
he did not know as he could get in, but he 
might try. It was a very cold day, and he 
determined to go in and get warm if he 
could possibly do so. He succeeded in 
getting into the cabin, but he said it was 
so full that it was not without much effort 
that the immates could open the door. 
The cabin, he thought, was about eight 
by twelve feet, and in it were an old man 
and his wife and two daughters. One was 
married and had a family of small children, 
and it was her husband who said, '' I do not 
know as you can get in." That cabin had 
no roof except an old wagon-sheet spread 
over it, and that was full of holes ; and the 
wind, blowing through the walls, which were 
very open, kept the old canvas fluttering 
like the torn sail of a vessel in a storm. 
The whole effort of the distressed ones 
seemed to be to keep from freezing. The 
old man said he thought if they could pos- 
sibly live until spring they would be in bet- 



FRONTIER DESPERADOES. 5/ 

ter circumstances by another winter. One 
man came to our house and said his wife 
had died a short time before, and he had 
seven young children, one a babe, and the 
little ones claimed his whole attention, and 
without assistance they would certainly per- 
ish. We divided with them at the time, 
and soon succeeded in gathering some- 
thing for their subsistence. My husband 
went to see them, and said that never be- 
fore had he seen such suffering human- 
ity. The babe soon died, and the poor 
father said, "We shall all get through 
with this world soon." 

The town was at this time a very rough 
and wicked place. Two saloons were kept 
blazing with quarrels and blasphemy day 
and night, and quite frequently a poor 
fellow would be sent to a drunkard's 
eternity without having time to say, *' God 
be merciful to me, a sinner." 

One night, very soon after dark, I sent 
my little boy to the post-office, and in a 



58 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

moment after he had left the house I heard 
most dreadful screams and oaths, and sev- 
eral shots were fired. I ran to the door and 
said, '' Oh dear ! I will not let Winnie go 
anywhere another night after dark ;" and 
as I looked out I heard a ball whistle past 
my head. In a moment my boy came in 
and said, "They are having an awful fight." 
The next morning a young man was lying 
dead in a house that had been used for a 
meat-market. I was told that the last 
words he said were, " Lay me on a soft 
bed," but they laid him on the hard floor, 
and there he died. 

One man who boasted of the great num- 
ber of men he had killed shot a man in the 
Scotchman's " dug-out." The young man, 
who was very civil and much respected, 
saw the ruffian whipping a boy and told 
him to let the boy alone — that he was do- 
ing very wrong in whipping him. The 
ruffian then left the boy and told the 
young man he would surely kill him in- 



FRONTIER DESPERADOES. 59 

side of a week. The young man's friends 
advised him to leave the place, as the des- 
perado had threatened to kill him and he 
certainly would do so ; but he said he 
would not : if he was killed, it would be all 
right. After three or four nights of dodg- 
ing and hiding in order to keep out of the 
villain's way, he went into the '* dug-out " 
and went to sleep. But the murderer was 
on his track. In a few moments he raised 
the blanket that served for a door and fired 
several shots. The little children were ter- 
ribly frightened and screamed, and the 
young man said, " Don't shoot any more ; 
I am killed." The assassin then ran. The 
Scotchman caught his rifle and fired at him 
without effect ; at the same time, one of the 
children ran for the physician. The young 
man reached the Scotchman some papers, 
and said, " Put these into the fire ; I want 
to see them burn ;'* and after they were 
burned he went out in the air and fell 
down. In a moment he arose, and walked 



6o SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

into the dug-out in great agony and cov- 
ered with perspiration. By this time the 
doctor came, and after examining the 
wound he gave him an opiate ; but in one 
hour he was dead. The ball had passed 
throug^h his lun^s. 

Shortly after this a well-dressed gentle- 
man came into the town and was sitting on 
the counter in one of the stores, when this 
same desperado made his appearance in 
the door with revolver in hand, and said, 
" I wonder if I can shoot a hole through 
that man's hat?" The gentleman laid his 
hat on the counter, and said, " Yes, shoot 
it if you want to." — " I would rather shoot 
it on your head," said the ruffian. — " None 
of your shooting here," said the merchant ; 
but as soon as the man put his hat on his 
head again he fell to the floor a dead man. 
The ball passed directly through his brain. 
The murderer mounted a fast horse and 
dashed off toward the timber, and in a 
moment was out of sight. 



FRONTIER DESPERADOES. 6 1 

In a few days the town was full of 
strangers ; they said very Httle, but seemed 
to notice everything that was said or done. 
After a while a man came into town and 
purchased some cheese and crackers, but 
as he left and was crossing the stream 
a number of men surrounded him and 
put a rope around his neck, and told him 
he was carrying that provision to the man 
McCarty, who had killed so many, and 
if he would take them to him they would 
let him go, otherwise they would hang him 
that moment without any further ceremony. 
He acknowledged that the provision was for 
McCarty, but said that if he betrayed him 
the ruffian would kill him too, and he sup- 
posed he might as well die one way as an- 
other. But the strangers told him if he 
would take them to McCarty that was all 
they asked of him, and they could guaran- 
tee that he would never be harmed by the 
desperado. To this he consented, and in 
less than an hour he showed them, in a 



62 SIX YEANS ON THE BORDER. 

cluster of trees, a man lying on the ground 
asleep, and said, " There he is." 

As the men walked toward McCarty he 
heard their tramp and sprang to his feet, 
and, seeing the condition he was in, ran 
for his horse, which was tied to a tree a 
short distance away. As many balls 
whistled by his head, he turned and with 
steady aim began to shoot at his assail- 
ants ; but ere he fired the third shot a ball 
struck and shattered his wrist, and his re- 
volver fell to the ground. He then threw 
up his hands, walked up to the men, fell on 
his knees and began to plead for his life. 
He said he wanted at least a few days to 
prepare for death before they sent him out 
of the world. They said they would give 
him five minutes. He said he was not fit 
to die. They told him he was not fit to 
live ; but he crawled up to their feet and 
begged for his life in a most distressing 
manner, his lips quivering and tears flow- 
ing freely. When the five minutes had ex- 



FRONTIER DESPERADOES. 63 

pired, one of the party said to a brother 
of the young man who had been killed in 
the Scotchman's dug-out, " Now is your 
chance : give it to him ;" but the young 
man said he could not do it, and turned 
around and wept. Then several shots 
were heard, and the murderer's soul went 
into the presence of Him before whom he 
had hastened ihe souls of so many of his 
fellows. His cries to man for pity instead 
of to God were hushed, and his body, 
riddled with balls, was left on the around 
for the buzzards to eat. "As a man sins, 
so shall he be punished." The measure 
this ruffian had meted out to others was 
finally meted to him. Very brave was he 
until grim Death looked him in the face, 
and then a poor coward. 

During the winter my husband held a 
protracted meeting in the new schoolhouse 
which had been built in the town, and for 
several nights both saloons were closed 
during church-time and nearly all the in- 



64 S/.V VJwiA'S ON THE BORDER. 

habitants of the town attended the meet- 
ings ; and many of the worst and most im- 
penitent men seemed to be very penitent. 
One who was considered the most hard- 
ened sinner in the town said, " This town 
has been run by the devil long enough, 
and I think it is time the people began to 
repent and do better." He said this in the 
presence of many of the wicked and pro- 
fane. 

It seemed as though a great revival was 
about to shine upon the darkness of the 
place, but the devil was busily at work. A 
small stack of hay was in dispute between 
two of the citizens ; it was not worth more 
than two or three dollars. Two men at- 
tempted to take the hay ; a battle followed 
and then a lawsuit, and nearly every one 
took sides with one party or the other. 
This strife continued until the Spirit was 
quenched ; the light which seemed to be 
dawning on the place disappeared, and 
the meetings were given up. 



CHAPTER VI. 

DEATH AND DANGERS. 

IT was on one cold, rainy morning in the 
month of March that a gentleman came 

to our house to tell us that Mrs. G 

was dead and her husband had sent his 
team for us. The dreadful news pierced 
my heart like an arrow. I was just antici- 
pating a pleasant visit from her whom I 
loved so dearly, and to be thus so sudden- 
ly deprived of her society seemed more 
than I could endure. 

As we rode over the prairie, which was 
covered with six inches of water ruffled by 
the strong east wind, I thought there was 
not a ruffle of sorrow or trouble in the 
cold bosomi of my friend ; and I almost 
felt a desire to bid farewell to the world, 

5 65 



66 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

with all its cares and disappointments, and 
go also to the better land. 

When we reached the cabin of our 
friends, I could scarcely enter the door 
to gaze upon the pale face of her who 
had never hung her harp on the willow 
because she was in a strangfe land. But 
when I looked upon the cold features, I 
thought there was still a smile of sweet- 
ness which the gentle spirit had left upon 
the clay, as the rays of the sun are seen 
upon the tinted clouds after it has gone 
down. That night I sat by the side of the 
fallen temple whose occupant had gone to 
dwell in the palace of light. I could not 
understand why one so lovely and so 
loving, so full of good deeds and so intelli- 
gent and spiritually-minded, should be called 
away so suddenly, while others who never 
threw any brightness upon the pathway of 
life were left to spend their days without 
usefulness. It seemed as though the light 
of the little neighborhood had been blown 



DEATH AND DANGERS. 6/ 

out. I knew she would be missed in the 
prayer-meeting and in the Sabbath-school, 
for she delighted to talk about Jesus, whom 
she daily worshiped. She would be missed 
also in many a home where her smiles 
and sweet conversation had so often 
cheered the lonely ones of her sex. Above 
all, she would be missed by her husband, for 
whose sake she had left a beautiful home 
and cast in her lot with the pioneers 
of the plains. Why did she die ? Could 
not a physician have saved her life? "Was 
there no balm in Gilead, was there no phy- 
sician there?" and, literally speaking, we 

answer, " No." The physician at C 

had gone East to die, and nearer than 
twenty-five miles off there was no other 
that could be relied on. But her time to 
go home had come, and she was ready. 
*' She had fought a good fight," and then 
the Captam of her salvation welcomed her 
into the rest that remains " for the people 
of God." 



68 SJX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

The next day a goodly number of the 
people of the settlement came to pay their 
last respects to the departed sister. Not- 
withstanding the awful storm which con- 
tinued to sweep over the region, by ten 
o'clock the little cabin was filled. My hus- 
band preached from the words, " Blessed 
are the dead who die in the Lord." After 
the sermon we laid her down by her babe 
in her little garden, beneath a box-elder 
tree which she had planted with her own 
hands, and as we stood around that grave 
and sang " Sister, thou wast mild and love- 
ly," there were many drops falling to the 
ground besides those which were left there 
by the rain. 

In less than three weeks from this time 
my husband preached the funeral sermons 
of two other ladies, who died within a mile 
of this place and were buried with their 
babes in their arms. And thus on the 
border hundreds of young mothers sleep 
beneath the cover which is red, white and 



DEA TH AND DANGERS. 69 

blue in spring, green in summer, brown 
in autumn and black in winter. 

The next day was the Sabbath. My 
husband left early in the morning to at- 
tend his different appointments, and the 
bereft widower went with him, leaving me 
alone with my little ones and God. The 
rain had ceased, and the sun occasionally 
looked down on the little mound of fresh 
earth beneath the cabin window. The 
black, heavy clouds were passing away, 
gradually revealing more and more of the 
blue sky beyond ; but the clouds of sorrow 
were not vanishing from my poor heart. 
It was one of the loneliest days of my life; 
as with the Psalmist, tears were my meat 
from morning till night. My little children 
were out for the first flowers of the season, 
and sad indeed were the emotions of my 
soul. 

Oh the cabin so lone and drear ! 

No sister there to greet ; 
Her voice was music to my ear, 

Her smiles were always sweet. 



70 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

In order to fulfill the requirements of the 
law, we again moved back to our claim, as 
we were in danger of losing what improve- 
ments we had made. We now built a 
cabin, of pine boards, twelve by four- 
teen feet. 

One day, shortly after we moved into 
that little house, a thunder-storm came up 
suddenly from the north-west, and blew it 
from the foundations with such force that 
one corner was driven nearly a foot into 
the ground. Some old boxes and barrels 
and loose boards were hurled through the 
, air as though they had been straws. Dur- 
ing this storm several cabins were blown 
down. In one two young women were 
killed. Their father succeeded in orettino^ 
out of the house, and hastened to remove 
the roof from his daughters, both of whom 
were dead, crushed in a shocking manner. 

Here I will mention the peculiar escape 
of a family which happened some time be- 
fore this. The cabin in which they lived 



DEATH AND DANGERS. 7 1 

was built of very small logs, and was cov- 
ered with a heavy dirt roof. One night, 
after a storm, the whole family were 
seated around the fireplace, which was 
one of the old-fashioned kind, built on 
the outside of the house, so that it was 
not covered by the dirt roof It was late in 
the evening, and the fire had burned nearly 
out, when they were startled by a sudden 
crash, at the sound of which they all sprang 
into the fireplace. They had probably be- 
fore thought of adopting this plan, and it 
proved to be successful, for they all escaped 
uninjured. As the roof fell in the walls fell 
out. 

In the following July, Indian troubles 
commenced anew. For several days we 
had heard of the atrocious deeds of the 
savages. We knew that several tribes 
were on the war-path, and that serious 
troubles were inevitable. 

On Sunday night my husband returned 
home very late ; he had preached three 



72 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

times and had ridden on his pony nearly 
thirty miles, and was very weary. He said 
he thought he should fall from his saddle 
before he could reach home. We soon 
retired, and in a short time were fast 
asleep. About two in the morning we 
were startled by a loud rap on the door. 
Two of our neighbors called my husband 
out, so that the children and myself should 
not be frightened, and told him some of our 
neighbors had been killed and scalped, and 
that his family was the only one left in the 
neighborhood. The men had their rifles 
in their hands, and seemed to be much 
excited and in a great hurry ; so they 
hastened away, telling my husband to 
look out for himself and his family. We 
did not sleep any more that night. We 
had no horses, and the night was dark ; so 
we could only pray for God to protect us 
and our four small children, and wait for 
the morning light. 

Before coming to the West I had often 



DEATH AND DANGERS. 73 

read of those who Hved in constant dread 
of the arrow and the scalping-knife. and 
many a time I thought I could tell some- 
thing about how they felt ; but now I 
learned that imagination was not reality. 
Neither were dangers far away like dan- 
gers near at hand. The reading of these 
things was like the distant thunder when 
not a cloud could be seen, but now the 
heavens were black and the thunderbolt 
seemed to be striking at my feet. The still- 
ness of the night, only occasionally broken 
by the distant howling of wolves or by the 
barking of a dog, and the thought that the 
treacherous red men might be stealthily 
creeping through the awful darkness, and 
that at any moment we might be surprised 
by their horrid yells, made the lingering 
hours of darkness dismal almost beyond 
endurance. We felt powerless ; we had 
no weapons of defence except an axe, 
and our little house, being built of pine, 
would burn like a torch. But after this 



74 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

awful night of suspense we were cheered 
by the morning Hght. 

Old frontiersmen had told us that Indians 
often made their attack very early in the 
morning, and in a few moments two men 
(not those who came in the night) who 
were living in a log house a short distance 
away came to our cabin and said the In- 
dians were coming, and advised us to take 
our children to their house, saying that 
they would defend us, as they were well 
armed. We had no time to lose, as the In- 
dians were so near that we could see their 
red blankets, and were riding very fast ; 
but we were scarcely in the cabin before 
they turned and rode off in another di- 
rection. The house to which we fled for 
refuge was built of hewed logs, and the 
Indians are generally very cautious in 
making an attack upon such houses, from 
which many of them have been killed by 
shots fired at them between the logs of the 
walls. 




The Attack of the Indians. 



Page 74. 



DEATH AND DANGERS. 75 

By this time the excitement had become 
so great that few men dared to remain to 
take care of and defend their property. 
The men who said they would defend us 
now concluded to leave, and they kindly 
offered to take myself and my children 
with them to a place of safety. My hus- 
band resolved to remain and take care of 
our little home and the homes of others 
who had left the place. 

Shortly before night we came to a place 
on the bank of a small stream where hun- 
dreds of men, women and children who 
were on the retreat had stopped for the 
night ; and here we concluded to take our 
chance with the crowd. But few of them 
were armed, and it seemed to us as though 
*' the sheep were gathered together for the 
slauehter." About the middle of the nicrht 
a man came riding up in haste, and said 
there were more than a thousand Indians 
not five miles away and coming directly 
toward the spot. This caused an alarm- 



76 SIX YEAA'S ON THE BORDER. 

ino- stampede. The shrieks and cries of die 
women and die children made the scene 
more dismal. In a few moments every 
man, woman and child had left the place ; 
and if ever wheels Hew across the prairie, 
they did then. 

I shall never forget one man who had 
an ox-team. His wagon was old and the 
tires on the wheels were loose, and his pre- 
cious load consisted of his wife and children. 
That poor man, with whip in one hand, 
which he used briskly on the oxen, and a 
stone in the other hand, which he used to 
keep the tires from coming off the wheels, 
ran about twelve miles, striking the oxen 
with one hand and the wheels with the 
other. He died a short time after, and I 
believe this niolit hastened his death. 

Whether or not there was any truth in 
the report that the Indians were so near I 
could never learn, but I always thought it 
was much exaggerated. 

The next day I arrived with my children 



DhA'JJJ AN /J JJANdhh'S. 77 

at a village forty miles from our home, 
where I remained a few days ; but, as the- 
people there were much excited and 
alarmed, I resolved to go back to my 
home. 

When I returned, my husband's face was 
bruised and swollen. He said that the 
night before he had gone into a cabin to 
stay with some young men who were keep- 
ing cattle and horses ; the night was very 
warm, and they lay down leaving the door 
open. He thought, before he went to sleep, 
" Perhaps the red men may use tlieir toma- 
hawks on our heads before morning;" but 
instead of an Indian's tomahawk, a large 
deer's horn which was hanging up in the 
room fell and struck him in the face. He 
said that for several minutes he thought he 
had been struck by an Indian. 

The night I arrived at liome we tied our 
horse close to the door, and I concluded to 
have one night's rest even if I should never 
have another. But in the nic^ht I received 



yS SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

a fright that I did not get over for several 
days. Something pushed against the door 
with such force that the windows rattled 
and the whole house shook. My husband 
sprang from the bed, caught the axe and 
opened the door. It was the horse rub- 
bing himself. 

After this we slept for several nights in 
the corn-field, and many a restless and 
weary hour did I spend in that field of 
corn. One night I did not close my eyes 
in sleep ; I heard noises like the tramping 
of horses and the rustling of corn, and I 
knew I could see dark forms moving by at 
times. My clothing was wet with perspira- 
tion from within and the heavy night-dew 
from without. Morning revealed the fact 
that some horses had jumped out of the 
pasture and made their way into our 
field. 

A short time after this the great scare 
began to abate ; a good many soldiers 
were sent into the place, and all signs 



DEATH AND DANGERS. 79 

of Indians disappeared. The soldiers re- 
mained about a month. A few of tliem 
spent much of their time visiting among 
the settlers. One of them called at a 
dug-out in which lived a very large family 
(ten children, besides the parents). This 
soldier took a seat on the bed, but a sharp 
cry caused him to spring to his feet: he 
had sat down on a baby. He excused him- 
self as the mother endeavored to pacify the 
little one, and in a moment seated himself 
at the other end of the bed, when another 
cry was heard. He then took his hat and 
left, declaring it was the most prolific coun- 
try in the world. The woman had twin- 
babes, and had laid one at each end of 
the bed. 



CHAPTER VII. 

WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 

ALTHOUGH the great excitement be- 
- gan to die away, yet apprehen- 
sions of danger were still felt by many. 
Some said the Indians were waiting for 
the settlers to become quiet and feel se- 
cure, and then they would make a raid into 
the settlement and kill and scalp to their 
hearts' content. This thought caused con- 
stant dread and uneasiness. 

About this time my husband went to 
town, and as he rode along the main 
street a lady at the hotel came out and 
told him that the shoemaker had just been 
killed and the murderer had asked to see 
him. She also said they would hang the 
man who had committed the crime, and 

80 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 8 1 

that he wanted to see him as soon as 
possible. My husband sprang from his 
horse, and first ran into the shop to see 
if the shoemaker was really dead, and 
there he lay, cold and silent, by the side 
of his bench. He then hastened to the 
cabin to see the murderer, and to his sur- 
prise he found a young man, about eigh- 
teen years of age, with smooth feminine 
features and well dressed. His hands 
were tied together, also his feet. My 
husband asked him why he had commit- 
ted such a dreadful deed. The young 
man said he did not intend to kill the 
shoemaker, but only to scare him, and 
that he was sorry, and asked my husband 
to pray for him ; at the same time he told 
my husband that he was a church-member 
and had been brought up by religious pa- 
rents. My husband then prayed for him. 
The murderer also prayed for God to have 
mercy upon his poor lost soul, crying very 
earnestly for the Lord to save him. Al- 



82 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

though the night was cold, the young man 
was in such agony that large drops of sweat 
kept constantly trickling down his face and 
neck, and he continued to pray to God for 
mercy. 

During the first of the evening there 
was quite a crowd in and around the 
cabin ; it was in the midst of this crowd 
of wicked men that my husband prayed 
and conversed with the murderer about 
his soul's salvation. About ten o'clock 
the crowd began to disappear, and by 
eleven they were all gone except one man, 
who was left as a guard. Occasionally a 
man would come and look in at the door. 
The prisoner begged my husband to re- 
main until morning, feeling confident that 
the minister's presence would save his life, 
— at least, for that night. 

At midnight all was quiet. The prisoner 
was seated on a block, and a large rough 
man was standing by his side with a re- 
volver in his hand ; in one corner of the 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. ^l 

room, burning faintly, was a candle, which 
flickered as the wind blew through the open 
walls. A few dim lights could be seen on 
the distant prairie, and one still lingered in 
the office of the hotel. The night was 
dark ; not a star was to be seen. The 
prisoner said he was reconciled and not 
afraid to die. The guard promised to pro- 
tect him if he could ; and after advising 
him to look to Jesus, who himself died on 
a tree, my husband left him, mounted his 
horse and started for home. 

That night, before the sun went down, I 
had looked a great many times over the 
hazy prairie to see if my husband was 
coming. His horse was white, and I could 
discern it a long distance away ; but I 
looked and looked in vain until I could 
no longer distinguish objects on the plains, 
and then I took my seat by the cabin win- 
dow, stared through the darkness and lis- 
tened until after twelve for the familiar 
tramp of the horse's feet, but no white 



84 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

horse could I see. Several times I imag- 
ined I could hear the sound of the horse's 
feet, but it would soon die away in the dis- 
tance, and all would be silent. 

I waited some time after twelve o'clock, 
and then I resolved to leave the children 
in bed and go in search of my husband ; 
for I knew that something serious had 
happened to him or to some one else, for 
about that time he was prompt in returning 
home before dark, unless some of our neigh- 
bors' wives or daughters were with me. I 
thought of several things that might have 
detained him, but my great fear was that 
a party of red men had detected his white 
horse and killed and scalped him as they 
had some of our neighbors. But I had 
gone only a short distance before I heard 
the quick click of a horse's feet. Can it be 
my husband, or is it a party of Indians ? was 
my thought. I stepped out of the path 
into a little ravine and watched until I 
could see the white horse ; and when I 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 85 

called, my husband was starded to find me 
so far from the cabin. The next morning 
the young man was hanging to a limb of a 
Cottonwood tree. 

If I should be asked what was the cause 
of this terrible affair, my answer would be, 
** Whisky." The day before the murder the 
shoemaker was intoxicated and used unbe- 
coming language to some ladies at the 
hotel. This young man put him out of 
the house and whipped him, and was 
praised by the ladies, who said he did a 
good deed. The next day the young man 
was drinking. He had heard frontiersmen 
talk about shooting, and, with his brain 
fired with liquor, he concluded to show his 
bravery by killing some one. Although he 
told my husband he did not intend to kill 
the man, a boy at the hotel said that the 
murderer, while loading his revolver, had 
told him that the shoemaker had only five 
minutes to live. He doubtless intended to 
kill him, and thought it would be considered 



86 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

a brave and noble act ; which would have 
been the case had he committed the deed 
in self-defence. But it was premeditated 
murder. As he went into the shop the 
shoemaker raised his hand and said, " Don't 
shoot !" but the words were no sooner spo- 
ken than he fell from his bench, and in a 
moment he was dead. 

A few days after this the murderer's 
father, an old man with white locks, came 
into the town and asked a boy to go with 
him to the cemetery and show him the 
grave of his son. The old man spent 
several hours by that grave weeping, and 
after he had written his son's name on a flat 
stone and stood it at the head of the p^rave 
he walked away, and passed out of the town 
weeping and sobbing as though his aged 
heart would break. 

About this time the grasshoppers came 
down upon us. The air was darkened, and 
in a short time after they commenced to 
fall I could not find room for the sole of 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 8/ 

my foot on the ground without crushing 
vast numbers of them. The roof, and also 
the walls, of our cabin were covered, and 
our windows were darkened. The roar of 
their wings was like the sound of distant 
and continued thunder. In less than three 
days nearly every green thing had disap- 
peared : they devoured even the leaves of 
the trees. I had experienced terrible storms 
of sand and dust, but I had never seen 
such a storm of living creatures before. 
They swirled in the air, and came down 
" heaps upon heaps " until the very earth 
seemed to throb with life. The corn was 
destroyed, and the little fruit trees were 
eaten nearly to the ground. This trouble, 
in addition to the other calamities, so com- 
pletely discouraged the people that hun- 
dreds left their improvements and fled 
from that region ; but such as had no 
horses or money were compelled to re- 
main, let the consequence be what it 
would. 



88 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

About this time we moved back to 

C . As a sick woman was occupying 

our house, we rented an old box shanty 
which stood between the two saloons. 
Durinor the time we lived in this house 

o 

I experienced more of the horrors of 
strong drink than I had ever before im- 
agined could exist anywhere on this fair 
earth of ours. A thin board partition, 
which had been perforated with balls and 
shot, separated our room from one of the 
dens of vice, which I could not conceive of 
being surpassed in iniquity and degrada- 
tion by the "bottomless pit" itself. I need 
not mention the awful stench — which it was 
not difficult to imagine as coming from the 
lower regions — the bitter oaths and obscene 
language or the shriek and racket as a poor 
fellow would be felled to the floor when 
struck on the head by perhaps a brother 
or a friend; neither need I mention the 
clatter of broken bottles as the glass would 
fall to the floor or the mournful and sud- 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 89 

den cries and unintelligible expressions of 
such as suffered with delirium tremens ; for 
all these are the offspring of Bacchus, the 
outgrowth of such places of death, and 
branches of the parent stock. 

One man in this saloon was dying with 
delirium tremens. My husband had known 
him when he was a sober and respectable 
man, but a few months were sufficient to 
complete the sad story : he embraced the 
boisterous society of that saloon instead 
of giving his heart to the Saviour; and 
there he drank, and there he died. While 
my husband conversed with him before he 
passed away he cried out in his wandering 
thoughts, " I'll go to church when I get 
well." A number of his old associates 
promised to take care of him until morn- 
ing ; but in the morning he was dead, and 
his companions in sin, who had promised to 
watch over him, were all asleep on the floor: 
he died alone. They brought in a rough 
box, and one took him by the feet and 



90 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

the other by the hair of his head, and 
they dropped him into that box as though 
he had been a dead dog. 

How true are the words, " The wages of 
sin is death"! and how Httle mercy for one 
another dwells in the hearts of bad men 
whose ways please not God ! 

As my health was poor, a young friend 
came to stay with me for a few weeks. One 
night after she came a terrible uproar was 
heard in the saloon ; in a moment a crowd 
gathered in front of our door, and in the 
midst of horrid yells and curses the crack- 
ing of pistols commenced. The young lady 
screamed and wanted to leave the house, 
for she said we should all be killed before 
morning. It was a scene to try the strong- 
est nerves — the constant flash of firearms 
streaming by the window, accompanied 
with hoarse voices uttering threats and 
blasphemous oaths — but the crowd soon 
dispersed ; and, strange to say, no one 
was killed, though several were injured. 



WHAT LIQUOR DOES. 9 1 

I think it was the next night that a 
number of herders were becoming very 
merry, when I heard some one say, '' Boys, 
boys, keep still ! The preacher lives in 
there." — "Is that so?" said one. "My 
father also is a preacher." Thenceforward 
things were more quiet until we moved into 
our own house, and then there was a grand 
rejoicing. We moved about dark, and as 
soon as we left the young people began to 
gather in the shanty to have a dance ; and 
in a short time the vacated room was light- 
ed brightly and the revel began. One of 
our church-members, who always claimed 
that it was no harm to dance, heard the 
noise, and, not knowing that we had moved, 
hastened home and told his wife he would 
never go to hear that minister preach again. 
"Why?" asked his wife, much surprised. 
Her husband replied, " His house is full, 
and they are playing the fiddle and danc- 
ing." — " Why, Mr. T , you are certain- 
ly mistaken !" — " I am not mistaken. I was 



92 S/.\ i7':.IA\S ON riJE BONDER. 

particular to look in, and saw tluin with 
my own eyes." The wife then said she 
would oo and see for herself; so she and 
her sister went out to convince themselves, 
and they said they would have to believe it. 
Then they went home, and in a few min- 
utes a very wicked and j)rofane man came 
in, and was told that the preacher was 
havino- a dance at his house. " That is 
no more than I should have expected," 
said the scoffer ; " these preachers are al- 
ways tellino- others not to do the very 
thino^s they do themselves. l)ut really I 
do not think it is any more harm for a 
preacher to dance than it is for any olIku* 

church-member." — "I do," said Mr. T ; 

" I think a preacher should set a oood 
example." The youn<>- man replied that 
if it was a sin for one of Christ's followers 
to dance, it was a sin for another, preach- 
er or no preacher ; but if it was no sin, he 
thouoht a minister should not be censured 
for dancing or allowing others to dance 



IV//A7' IJnlJOJ^ IJO/'.S. 93 

in his house:. l>iil Mr. T and his wife: 

and sister said thai they thought less of 
the preacher and his wife, and fe-dt as though 
they would never go to another dance as 
long as they lived. 

Early the ne^xt morning, as I looked 
out of the window of my home, I saw 
this woman go to the house from which 
we had moved. After rapping two or 
three times she looked in, and, finding 
no one there, she came directly to our 
door. As I opened it and said, " C^ood- 
morning, Mrs. 'i ," she came in laugh- 
ing and told me the whole story, and said 
she never before realized how dreadful it 
would seem for a minister to have a crowd 
of rough, wicked people in his house danc- 
ing, and she had concluded to attend no 
more dances. I told her that to a minister 
it seemed as bad to see the members of 
his church dancing as it did to them to 
see him dancing. She replied that she had 
never thought of it in that way before. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. 

ABOUT this time, one morning very 
^ early, before the sun had thrown 
his golden light over the grassy plains, I 
looked out of the window and saw armed 
men coming Into the town from every direc- 
tion. I told my husband that the Indians 
were certainly near, otherwise there would 
not be so many armed men around the 
town so early In the morning. He went 
out, but soon returned, telling me that 
the sheriff was In town and had arrested 
several men for stealing horses. And here 
let me give a brief description of the men 
who were arrested. 

First, Mr. M , a man of some prop- 
erty, lived in a neat log house one mile 

94 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. 95 

from town ; he was a large fleshy man, but 
crippled with rheumatism. He had kept 
a dance-house, but it was burned by the 
citizens, and he had barely escaped with 
his life. This morning, as the sheriff went 
into his house, his wife said her husband 
was sick ; but the sheriff with his men 
took him out of his bed, saying that he 
must go to W , sick or well. 

Second, Mr. T , a saloon-keeper 

whose wife was a Catholic. My husband 
called at their house a short time before 
this, and she told him that he had better 
not call again, as her husband did not 
like preachers, although they both came 
to hear him preach quite frequently. 

Third, Mr. C , a hotel-keeper, a very 

bad man ; his wife was a very bad woman. 
Both drank whisky and used profane lan- 
guage, and quarreled constantly, not only 
with each other, but also with their neigh- 
bors. 

Fourth, Mr. H , a young lawyer, 



9^ SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

about twenty-two years of age, and con- 
sidered the most handsome young man 
in that country. He had been educated 
in the city of New York, and not only 
had more than usual ability as an attor- 
ney, but possessed those qualities which 
are requisite in any young man in order 
to make him a gentleman of the first class. 
But he was not a good man ; he kept bad 
company and spent more money than he 
could honorably earn, and seemed to sink 
gradually into those sins by which the hopes 
and the prospects of thousands of young 
men are blasted for time and eternity. A 
short time before this my husband roomed 
with him one night ; he seemed very ami- 
able, but did not want to talk on the subject 
of religion. 

Fifth, Mr. S , said to have been the 

son of an ex-governor, but very much 
degraded on account of strong drink ; his 
right arm had been amputated at the 
shoulder, so that he could do but little 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. 9/ 

work of any kind. During the previous 
winter he sat day after day in front of 
the saloons dressed in the same old brown 
suit ; his hair was long and matted ; he slept 
wherever night found him — in the stable, 
on the saloon floor, and doubtless many 
a time on the cold ground. He was so 
completely under the influence of whisky, 
and so thoroughly controlled by bad men, 
that he would not listen to any words of 
friendly counsel from those who would 
gladly have befriended him. My husband 
endeavored to encourage him to do right, 
but with profane language he railed at him 
and refused to be admonished. After this, 
when he was more sober, my husband at- 
tempted to counsel him again. This time 
he did not seem to be altogether void of 
feeling ; tears came to his eyes, and a few 
nights after this we saw him at church for 
the first time, and, notwithstanding the deg- 
radation into which vice had plunged him, 
we thought there was some prospect of his 



98 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

reformation. But, instead of yielding his 
heart to the Saviour at once, he continued 
to embrace his fetters and kiss the chains 
that held him, soul and body, to the slow 
but unquenchable fires of vice. 

Sixth, Mr. B . He had lived at 

C but a short time, and was doubt- 
less a bad man ; he was very large, and 
about thirty years of age. The day before 
the arrest he was in the town with a rifle 
looking for another desperado that he might 
kill him ; at the same time the other was 
lurking around and dodging from place to 
place, seeking an opportunity to kill Mr. 

B . He lived in a dug-out, half a mile 

from town. When the sheriff and his men 

rode up, Mr. B at first refused to allow 

himself to be taken, and the following: con- 
versation took place : 

Sheriff. Come out and give yourself up 
like a man. 

B. You will never take me alive. 

S. If you will give yourself up, I will 



THE PENALTY OF HORSESTEALING. 99 

defena you from the mob and you shall 
have a fair trial. 

B, I should never get to W alive. 

S. I have control of my men ; and if you 
will give yourself up, I pledge my word 
that you shall have a fair trial. 

B. I know the mob will hang me, and I 
will not give myself up alive. If you take 
me, you will take me a dead man ; but I 
will sell my Hfe as dearly as possible. 

S. I will give you ten minutes to send 
your wife out of the dug-out. 

B. My wife will assist me ; so proceed 
as soon as you like. 

kS. Send your wife out, and we will let 
her depart in peace. I do not wish to 
fight a woman. 

B. My wife will not leave ; she is a bet- 
ter warrior than you or any of the men you 
have in your crowd. 

S. You are foolish to lose your own life 
and endanger the life of your wife rather 
than defend yourself before an honorable 



lOO SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

court, with the probability of being set at 
liberty. 

B. I am not afraid of an honorable court, 
but I understand mob-law too well to ex- 
pect any such thing as that should I give 
myself up as a prisoner to-day ; so I shall 
not throw myself into the hands of a mob. 
But I do not object to dying here. I have 
the advantage, and will sell my life as dear- 
ly as possible. 

S, I have two hundred men, and it will 
not take long to bring you out. 

B, I know that, but you will exchange a 
good many lives for mine. I am all ready; 
so go right ahead without any more talk. 

Mrs. B was small in stature, with 

pale and delicate features, large bright 
eyes and short curly hair. She had lis- 
tened to the above conversation without 
a shudder. She had great confidence in 
herself, as well as in her husband, and she 
doubdess thought that within the fort they 
could cope with the whole crowd. As the 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. lOI 

sheriff was conversing with the men, she 
said in a low but unfaltering tone, " Will, be 
firm. I will stand by you to the last. We 
will either conquer or die together." As 
she said this she lifted a revolver in one 
hand and held a knife in the other, firmly 
grasped ; nor did her slender hands trem- 
ble. At this time another voice called out 
to Mr. B (it was that of an old ac- 
quaintance) and said, *' You are perfectly 
safe in surrendering; the sheriff tells me 
there is no danger. I will go with you to 

W and see that you are not harmed ;" 

and upon this Mr. B surrendered, dis- 
regarding the most earnest entreaties of 
his wife. 

About the middle of the day the sheriff, 
with his six prisoners and the posse whom 

he had deputized, left C for W . 

My husband, understanding the storm that 
was brewing, concluded to follow the pris- 
oners and befriend them as much as he 
possibly could. He said he felt very guilty 



102 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

to think he had not been more In earnest 
in seeking the salvation of those poor un- 
fortunate fellows, who had souls to be saved 
or lost, and he concluded to make another 
effort to bring them, like the poor one who 
died at Jesus' side, within the everlasting 
arms of love. But, alas ! how suddenly 
and awfully are our opportunities for use- 
fulness cut off! 

He arrived in W as the sun was set- 
ting ; the prisoners were there in the cala- 
boose. The town was full of men, and all 
seemed to be much excited. My husband 

had often preached in W , and was 

acquainted with many of the citizens, and 
with most of the people through the coun- 
try, for he had conversed with them at their 
own firesides, and he thouofht he mio-ht in- 
tercede successfully for the prisoners. He 
was told that they would certainly be 
lynched before morning. He then con- 
cluded to see the sheriff and obtain per- 
mission to spend the night with them. He 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. IO3 

desired to pray and converse with them, 
and to save their Hves if possible. He 
accordingly went to the sheriff's house and 
asked permission to enter the calaboose 
and converse with the men who, he be- 
lieved, would never see the light of an- 
other morning. But the sheriff said, "Not 
to-night ; you may go in the morning," and 
then went out. His wife added that she 
feared it would be too late by that time. 
As my husband left the place an old 
friend met him and said, " You must be 
careful what you say here to-night. It 
won't do for you to say anything in favor 
of those men ; you know a great many of 
our people have lost their horses, and in- 
tense excitement prevails." My husband 
replied that a crowd of two or three hun- 
dred could not be collected without a laree 
part of the men being persons known to 
him, and he would venture at least to inter- 
cede for the prisoners. His friend said he 
knew it was not safe, for there would be 



104 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

hundreds and most of them would be un- 
der the Influence of whisky, and in such 
circumstances men were very different from 
what they might seem to a minister in 
their own homes. 

These words, from a man of excellent 
judgment and a very dear friend, had 
much force with my husband ; yet still 
he determined to seek an opportunity to 
talk with the wretched criminals in the 
calaboose. His friend told him that his 
wife would like to see him, and asked 
him to come to his house ; and as soon 
as they had entered, the man locked the 
door and told my husband that he should 
not go out again that night. The sheriff 
had refused to let him see the prisoners, 
and a friend at whose house he had often 
found a welcome home had, on account 
of an interest in his personal safety, locked 
the door and said he must not go out ; so 
he retired to his room to spend the night 
in prayer. 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. I05 

It was a beautiful evening. The moon 
shone brightly ; scarcely a cloud could be 
seen, and a gentle south-west breeze added 
to the enjoyment of such as were seeking 
recreation by walking in the flowery paths 
that surrounded the village. But about 
the middle of the night, as he looked out 
upon the loveliness of nature, he heard 
the heavy tramp of many feet, and could 
see groups of men moving quickly along 
the streets. He then prayed to God to 
have mercy upon the souls about to leave 
the bodies of clay and go into his presence, 
and to foro^ive their sins as well as his own 
negligence in not being more faithful in the 
discharge of his duty. 

When the morning dawned he walked 
out, and the calaboose door was open ; he 
went down to the stream, and as he was 
crossing the bridge he saw three forms, 

the bodies of H , S and B , 

suspended to an oak-limb which reached 
out over the old road that led up from the 



I06 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

Stream and was traveled before the bridge 

was built. H , the lawyer, was near the 

end of the limb, and perhaps twenty feet 
from the ground. His feet were swaying 
to and fro, and his brown hair, streaming 
in the wind, occasionally fell over his pur- 
ple forehead. Next to him was the body 
of the man with only one arm, dressed 
in the same old brown jacket and over- 
alls that he wore the previous winter while 
sitting in front of the saloons, and near the 
trunk of the tree was the body of Mr. 

B , whom the sheriff allowed to fall 

into the clutches of a drunken mob, to be 
murdered by the hands of lawless men, 
many of whom were doubtless more guilty 
than himself. 

The bodies were taken down and laid 
in the court-house, and my husband was 

standing there as Mrs. B came in. She 

had followed her husband twenty-five miles 
on foot, and she fell down on the floor by 
his side and wept as though her heart was 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. lO/ 

ready to burst with grief. The sheriff 
turned to my husband, saying, 

" This is pretty rough." 

" Yes," was the reply ; " hundreds to kill 
their poor unfortunate brothers, but few to 
take them by the hand and with kind words 
encourage them to do better and become 
honorable men." 

Mrs. B bought a coffin for her hus- 
band and gave him a decent burial. The 
others were put in rough boxes and taken 
to the cemetery, followed by no friends to 
weep over their remains. 

After the men were incarcerated they 
sent for two very able and popular law- 
yers, who told the prisoners that if they 
would pay them one hundred dollars each 

they would set them at liberty. M , 

T and C were able to raise the 

amount, and so escaped ; the others were 
left to their fate. 

As they put the rope around the lawyer's 
neck he said he felt faint and asked for some 



I08 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

water, and they went to the stream and 
brought him some in a hat. He drank, 
and then said, " Boys, let me go, and I will 
leave the place and never return ; you will 
never hear of me acjain." Some hearts 
were touched ; others cried, " No !" He 
then said, " My life is of no account, but 
don't ever let my parents know what 
became of me : it would break their 
hearts." 

It is true that many of the people had 
lost their horses, and this was considered 
the most effectual means of putting an end 
to the stealing; which proved true, for 
after this there was not a horse stolen in 
the vicinity for more than a year. But it 
is an awful remedy to take men, with no 
certainty as to their guilt, and hang them 
like dogs, without even time or opportunity 
to repent of their evil deeds. 

In this case we have always thought that 
the guilty ones escaped and the innocent 
(as to the crime of which they were ac- 



THE PENALTY OF HORSE-STEALING. lOQ 

cused) suffered. My husband preached 
against diis kind of proceeding, and said 
it was murder; and he was asked by sev- 
eral men at the close of different meetings 
if he thought there was any forgiveness for 
a man who had taken the life of a fellow- 
mortal. One man who assisted in this 
work of death was a praying man. A 
short time after this he said that he saw 
the one whom he had tied come into his 
room in the night, and, being a supersti- 
tious man, he was so worried that he left 
the place. I have no doubt that many of 
those engaged in this violence have seri- 
ously repented before this. Had the pro- 
fessed Christians of that mob endeavored 
as earnestly to bring these wicked men to 
the Saviour as they did to send them out of 
the world, they might to-day have been 
happy Christians, rejoicing with those who 
showed them the way. But it is so easy 
to do wrong, and so hard to do right ! 



CHAPTER IX. 

A IIAKD WINTER, 

DURING the following winter the suf- 
fering- of the poor settlers was more 
severe than in the previous winter. Crops 
had been almost a failure, and the excite- 
ment caused by th(i Indians had so inter- 
fered with the labors of the pcoj^le that 
many who would have had comfortable 
houses were compelled to live in hovels 
or in dug-outs. The cry of distress was 
heard by the benevolent of almost every 
State in the Union, and valuable aid in the 
shape of boxes of clothing, provisions and 
money was sent for the relief of the suf- 
ferers. 

But, on account of the many drainings 

of selfishness on either side, the stream of 
no 



A HARD WIXTER. Ill 

I charity became very small by the tune it 
reached the extreme border. Men who 
were in good circumstances grasped more 
eagerly for the aid sent to the sufferers 
than did the actually destitute and needy. 

j A car-load of corn was shipped to the near- 
est railroad station, to be divided among the 

! needy ones of our country, and to be used 
only for seed. One man who had a hun- 
dred head of catde, a hundred acres sown 
to wheat, and several horses, also land and 
money, took one of his independent neigh- 
bors with him, and the two managed to se- 
cure all the corn for themselves ; so that the 
poor and suffering ones never received a 
kernel of it, to my knowledge. 

The frontier, where men and women are 
separated from those influences by which 
they were surrounded before leaving their 
homes in the East, and living among 
strangers far away on the plains, is one 
of the best places in the world to study 
human nature and to learn the utter de- 



112 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

pravlty of mankind. Here the passions 
of avarice, lust and oppression are not re- 
strained by public sentiment. The hyp- 
ocrite reveals himself in his true light. 
Here is seen the cloven foot of the beast, 
the fangs of the serpent and the poison of 
the adder. Many a father would blush 
with shame if he knew the disgraceful 
deeds committed by ' his once seemingly 
noble boy. Many a mother would weep 
tears of anguish could she know the depths 
of wretchedness into which her daughter 
has fallen. Many a school-teacher- would 
be astonished if he knew how the bright 
boy and the beautiful girl who were once 
ornaments in his school are now living in 
the West. Many a pastor would be greatly 
humbled, and would feel as did the proph- 
et when he cried out " How is the gold 
become dim ! How is the most fine gold 
changed !" if he knew the conduct of the 
man whom he once thought to be almost 
a saint. 



A HARD WINTER. 113 

It is an actual fact that many died for 
the want of the very assistance intended 
for them, but which was snatched away 
from their mouths by the greedy hands 
of selfishness. 

During this winter my husband preached 
but litde. In the autumn he contracted a 
heavy cold, which finally setded in his eyes, 
causing him much pain and comparative 
blindness until the next spring. Our house 
was still unplastered, having only the siding 
between my five children and the cold 
prairie storms. With my afflicted hus- 
band, and people constantly coming, I en- 
dured the winter as one of extreme toil 
and anxiety. Our meetings were well at- 
tended during the autumn, until my hus- 
band's eyes became so inflamed and pain- 
ful that he was compelled to give up the 
work. He had just commenced a pro- 
tracted meeting, and I have no doubt that 
the anxiety which he had for Christ's 
cause in that dark land, with much study 



114 ^V.r YEAJ^S ON THE BORDER. 

and readinor at nioht and oroino; from hot 
rooms so often out in the cold air, were 
the main causes of his sad affliction. 

One very cold morning, about the time 
he gave up his ministerial work on account 
of his eyes, the aged man who helped him 
over the streams when he was haulin^r lum- 
ber came into town with a load of wood 
to exchange for provisions. After unload- 
ing it at the hotel he came into our house 
to o^et warm. As he drew his chair close 
to the fire and shivered, he said he could 
not face the cold storms as he could once. 
He wore an old brown hat tied under his 
chin ; on his jacket patch had been added 
to patch until the original had nearly dis- 
appeared. As he sat by the fire there ran 
from his eye down over his withered cheek 
a tear, the track of which he wiped away 
with his rough hand. My husband, re- 
membering the kindness of the old man 
when first they met as strangers, now felt 
greatly stimulated to repay him. He ac- 



A HARD WINTER. II5 

cordingly pulled off his coat and told Mr. 

A to put it on ; the old man hesitated 

a moment, and then did so. He then gave 
the old man an overcoat, which he took 
from a box that had been sent for the 
poor, and he put that on also ; and when 
he left the house, he was not only warm 
and comfortable, but very thankful and 
happy. 

This winter was the hardest on the poor 
settlers of any we had experienced. As the 
spring came again thousands hailed it with 
joy and gladness, and the little children 
went forth from their home prisons to 
gather beautiful flowers, to play in the 
running streams, and to enjoy the sweet 
breezes that breathed so musically through 
the tree-tops, where the birds were singing 
and the buds bursting. 

It was early in the month of May my 
friend " Duck " came to visit me. I was 
alarmed to see how poor and pale she was. 
She said she had been " real sick." Her 



Il6 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

husband was herding catde out on die 
plains. They had no children. She was 
a brave woman — had fought the wolves 
in front of her cabin door, had traveled 
around with her husband on horseback, 
and had learned much of the nomadic life 
of the plains. She had been with me only 
a short time before I concluded, judging 
from the hollow cough, the sunken eye — 
which had lost its natural lustre — the pale 
features and the quick pulse, that she was 
a consumptive. I told her she must re- 
main a while with me, and I would take 
care of her. But, instead of improving, 
she continued to fail very fast until the 
middle of June, when it became evident 
to her as well as to her friends that her 
days in this world were few. Her hus- 
band was sent for ; he seemed much af- 
fected to find his wife so low. He sent 
sixty miles for a physician, who gave him 
no encouragement. She continued to get 
weaker until the eighth day of July, when 



A HARD WINTER. 11/ 

she peacefully crossed over the dark river. 
Before she passed away she conversed with 
me about the love of Jesus and her willing- 
ness to trust him, but said she was so sorry 
for her poor husband. And thus joined the 
heavenly company one of whom it could 
well have been said, 

*• None knew her but to love her, 
None named her but to praise." 

During the spring w^e built to our house 
an addition which we intended for two bed- 
rooms, but at this time a quilt answered for 
a partition. About a week before my friend 
died, my husband was taken sick with ma- 
larial fever, and was now very low. He 
was not able to attend the funeral. Mr. 

C , the widower, said he could not 

have his wife buried without a sermon. 
My husband told him of a minister twenty- 
five miles away, who was the nearest clergy- 
man of any evangelical Church. This min- 
ister was sent for, and conducted the funeral 



Il8 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

services. Before Mrs. C died she want- 
ed me by her side nearly all the time. With 
her in one room and my sick husband in the 
other, and all my little children to look after 
and care for, my strength failed, and as soon 
as she breathed her last I was prostrate and 
not able to do any work for nearly two 
weeks, at which time my husband was so 
reduced that our neighbors said he would 
be the next to be carried from that town 
to the cemetery. But God willed it other- 
wise; he has lived to see laid in their graves 
many of those who were then strong and 
healthy. 

At that time our friends were very kind, 
and we were well cared for ; but as we be- 
gan to recover we found our financial cir- 
cumstances very embarrassing. Our doc- 
tor's bills had broken in heavily upon our 
small income, and it was only by very strict 
economy and pinching that we were en- 
abled to pay our debts and keep our credit 
good. We had two cows, but before this 



A HARD WINTER. I IQ 

they both died. Our salary was five hun- 
dred dollars from the Board of Home Mis- 
sions, and we did not receive as much from 
the people with whom we were laboring as 
we gave to the sufferers, for we were con- 
stantly dividing with those who were more 
needy than ourselves. 

A family consisting of husband, wife and 
twelve children lived in a little shanty near 
the town. They were very destitute. One 
day I went to their place. Some of the lit- 
tle ones were out playing without any cloth- 
ing on ; they were as brown as buns. The 
mother said it was impossible to keep them 
clothed. I filled a pillow-case with such 
articles as I could spare, and gave it to 
her. A short time after this the eldest 
girl (and eldest child) married our baker. 
He was a stirring young man, and by hard 
work and economy had been able to pur- 
chase a few groceries to sell in connection 
with his bakery. His property, including 
his house and lot, could not have been 



I20 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

sold for more than five hundred dollars ; 
but the young and foolish girl thought 
she had married the richest man in all 
the country. The baker soon found that 
he had married not only the girl, but the 
whole of her family ; for he had them all 
to maintain, which soon caused serious 
trouble. 

My husband called on one family and 
asked the woman to come to church and 
Sabbath-school with her children. She said 
they were too poor and had no clothing 
good enough to wear. " Well," said he, 
" mend and put on the best you have ; 
do your duty and worship God, and per- 
haps you will have better after a while." 
— " Yes," replied the old lady ; " the Bible 
says, ' Patch up your old coat and wear it 
until you are able to buy a new one,' " and 
said she knew she was not mistaken, for 
she had read it in the Bible many a time. 
He advised her to obey that command, but 
she did not. Such is the ignorance con- 



A HARD WINTER. 121 

cerning the Bible which prevails among a 
certain class on the border. 

In the autumn my husband went out 
with a party to hunt buffaloes. After one 
day's drive there came up a fearful storm, 
and they all remained under their wagon- 
covers and shivered, while the poor horses 
shivered standing by the wagons. The 
storm lasted nearly twenty-four hours, and 
the prairie was flooded and the streams in 
the ravines were so swollen as to make 
the attempt to cross them very unsafe. 
But they were soon enabled to travel by 
keeping on the highest ground. In a short 
time, as they passed over a little hill, they 
found themselves within a few rods of an 
Indian village. The Indians saw them and 
came streaming out of their wigwams and 
surrounded them on every side. Some 
had bows and arrows, some had rifles and 
others had knives. My husband said that 
for a moment he thought his time had come 
to die. But one of the party had been an 



122 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

Indian-trader, and the Indians knew him. 
The chief spoke a few words to his braves, 
and they laid down their arms. A negro 
was among the party of hunters, and some 
of the young Indians seemed determined 
to have his scalp. They gathered around 
him with long sharp knives, and would 
probably have scalped him had not the 
chief interfered. The Indians soon went 
back to their wigwams, and the hunters 
were permitted to go along unmolested. 
The poor negro, however, kept feeling the 
top of his head, and continued to groan 
until the next morning. A few days after 
this a party of hunters were actually killed 
and scalped near this place. 

The next day the hunting-party went out 
in the morning, leaving my husband to take 
care of the stuff and prepare dinner. In 
a short time a large brown bear came 
around the side of one of the hills, 
walked close to the camp and stood on 
his hind feet, and there remained for near- 



A HARD WINTER. 1 23 

ly a half hour. My husband did not have 
a gun, or even an axe : the party had taken 
all the arms with them. He knew it would 
be useless to run ; so he stood and watched 
the bear, and the bear watched him. After 
getting tired. Bruin dropped down on his 
fore feet and walked back slowly behind 
the hill. My husband then went and found 
the rest of the party, about a mile away. 
They had killed a buffalo, and were bring- 
ing in some of the meat for dinner. They 
moved to another camping-place, and con- 
cluded to let the bear alone, if he should 
not be the first a^eressor. 

Another hunting-party were out about 
fifty miles from home ; they had been very 
successful, had their wagons loaded with 
choice buffalo meat and hides, antelopes 
and turkeys, and intended to start for 
home in the morning. As they had seen 
no signs of Indians, they were careless and 
neglected to keep a guard ; and in the 
morning one of their wagon-wheels was 



124 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

gone, a prop had been put under the axle- 
tree to support the load and the wheel had 
been taken away. This left the party in a 
bad condition, as the others would not go 
away and leave their comrade in distress. 
In this situation they remained until 
about ten o'clock, not knowing what to 
do. Finally a party of six Indians came 
in sight, and rode slowly along as if they 
were going in another direction, but con- 
cluded to call and see what was the diffi- 
culty with the hunters. As they came up 
one of the party approached them, and 
told them of their bad condition. The 
Indians said they would get the wheel and 
bring it to them if each of the party would 
pay them two dollars; to this the hunte-rs 
agreed, and in less than three hours they 
came with the wheel. They put a stick 
through the hub, and two were rolling it 
along through the grass. They said they 
took it from another tribe. The hunters 
knew they had taken it themselves, but 



A HARD WINTER. 12$ 

they paid them according to contract, and 
were very glad to get the wheel back at 
such a low price. The Indians divided the 
money and rode off, and the party rolled 
out for home and did not give the red 
men a chance to steal another of their 
wheels. 



CHAPTER X. 

BRIDAL AND DEATH. 

THIS summer the crops were good. 
Wheat averaged nearly twenty bush- 
els to the acre, corn about forty, and oats 
fifty. Vegetables were an excellent yield, 
and all the poor settlers could indulge 
freely in the luxury of watermelons. The 
people were now greatly encouraged ; real 
estate rose fifty per cent, in value. Immi- 
gration began to pour into the place, and 
better times were not only anticipated, but 
experienced by all. 

About this time my husband said I could 
have all his marriage fees to purchase such 
articles as I needed in the house. Some 
of the newly-married grooms were quite 
liberal, but among the rest of the happy 

126 



BRIDAL AND DEATH. 127 

couples there came a young man and a 
young lady to be married. I brushed up 
the lady's clothing and assisted her in get- 
ting ready, called in some of our friends, 
and after the ceremony prepared dinner 
for all, expecting to be remunerated with 
a five-dollar bill ; but the young lady had 

lived near us before we moved to C , 

and one day, while she was visiting at our 
house, we were speaking of a friend who 
was just married, and my husband said to 
her, " If you will get married, I will mar- 
ry you for nothing ;" so now she said she 
should hold him to his promise, and they 
never o^ave us a cent. 

Another man asked, after the ceremony, 
" How much do you charge for marrying 
people?" My husband said he made no 
charge ; but, as the young man continued 
to insist on knowing the amount of his 
bill, he said the law allowed a justice of 
the peace three dollars. "Three dollars 
for a little job that can be done in ten 



128 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

minutes !" said the newly-married man. — 
" Give me what you think it is worth," said 
my husband ; and the man gave him two 
dollars, and said he considered that a very 
large price — more than he could earn in a 
whole day. The next happy man was 
more liberal : he gave two dollars and 
twenty-five cents. But this was quite as 
good pay as that received by our friend 

the Rev. Mr. H , of a neighboring 

town, who went several miles into the coun- 
try to marry a couple ; after the ceremony 
the man said he had no money, but had 
some very nice pups, which were as good 
as money, and the minister could have one 
of them. 

When Thanksgiving Day came we re- 
ceived a very pleasant surprise. A young 
lady kindly offered to care for the children 
in the evening and let me go to church. 
We were very much disappointed to find 
absent so many whom we expected to see 
there, and after service those who were 



BRIDAL AND DEATH. 1 29 

present hastened from the house, scarcely 
stopping to speak to us. We went slowly- 
home, thinking it very strange that our 
friends should act in such a manner. But 
when we opened the door, there stood a 
table loaded with a bountiful supper, and 
the rooms were full of smilinor faces. All 
that before seemed strange was now ac- 
counted for, and our hearts were gladdened 
with such a token of the love and esteem 
of those with whom we were laboring for 
the Master. 

We were fortunate enough this autumn 
to get our house plastered ; it was the first 
plastered house in the town. 

During the winter my husband was called 
to visit a dying man who lived in a little 
cabin about seven miles from the town. 
The sick man was about sixty years of 
age, and had a wife, a daughter and two 
sons living with him. He had been ill with 
malarial fever, which soon threw him into 
quick consumption. He was now dying, 



130 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

but not without the strong- abiding faith in 
the Lord Jesus that always casts a shining 
lustre on the pathway to the tomb. He 
conversed freely with my husband about 
his departure to the other world, and just 
before his spirit left the falling house of 
clay he opened his dim eyes and, gazing 
upward, cried out, " Oh, that beautiful 
river !" A young man noted for his pro- 
fanity was standing by the bedside watch- 
ing the change that came gradually over 
the features of this aged veteran of the 
cross. As a neighbor closed the eyes of 
the good old man the young man said to 
him, " Mr. S , I never realized it be- 
fore ; but it is an awful thing to die." 
From that time he began to give his 
heart to the Lord and call upon the name 
of Christ, whose " blood cleanseth from all 
sin," that he might "die the death of the 
righteous, and that his last end might be 
like his." So far as I know, he never 
uttered another oath. 



BRIDAL AND DEATH. I3I 

This young man had been deeply and 
truly in love with the daughter of the man 
who had now departed this life, and had 
sought her heart and hand, but was per- 
sistently refused on account of his profan- 
ity and wickedness. The father of the 
young lady had not long been laid away 
when she was taken with a cough, and in 
a short time the physician said he could do 
nothing for her; she had pulmonary con- 
sumption. She had become so changed 
and emaciated that all knew she would 
follow her father in a few months. The 
young man had now given up his evil 
habits and was living a life of prayer, 
but he still loved her, and again asked 
her to be his wife. She said she could 
live only a short time, and such a union 
would make parting more bitter. The 
young man insisted upon marrying her 
and taking her to his home to care for 
her while she did live. In a few days 
they came to our house and were united 



132 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

in marriage. I thought it was one of the 
most solemn scenes I had ever witnessed 
— a trembUng, wasted form leaning against 
a strong young man, vowing to be his faith- 
ful, loving wife until death. The slender, 
delicate hand that was clasped in his was 
not that of a beautiful bride who expect- 
ed a life of happiness in this world, but 
one that soon must be given up to the 
icy grasp of Death ; the crimson glow upon 
her cheek was not the healthful flush that 
adorns the features of the happy young 
bride, but simply the sign-painting of 
Death, where in fever-letters I could read 
the solemn words, "Be ye also ready." 
As I looked into her large bright eyes 
I thought, "Must they so soon be closed 
upon the one who would gladly give his 
life for her?" Her lips were parched and 
quivering, and as the tears dropped from 
her blue eyes others were rolling down 
the cheeks of the young man who stood 
by her side. Her husband took her to 



BRIDAL AND DEATH. 1 33 

his home and watched over her day and 
night. She was very patient, and daily 
led her kind companion nearer and near- 
er the dear Saviour who was now her 
comfort and support, and who had prom- 
ised to accompany her through the dark 
valley of death. But she soon died, in 
her husband's arms ; and, though he wept 
bitterly over her sleeping form, he has 
learned to love the Saviour in whom she 
trusted, and through whose death, merits 
and intercession he expects to meet the 
loved one where death has no claim. 

My husband again endeavored to hold a 
protracted meeting, but the wicked and pro- 
fane resolved to break up the services and 
turn the schoolhouse into a dancing-hall. 
The board of trustees were ungodly men, 
and in his sermons he reproved their wick- 
edness ; so they determined to put an end 
to his preaching in the schoolhouse. They 
accordingly locked the door. On Sunday 
morning a great many came to the house, 



134 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

and, not being able to enter, went away. 
Many of the people were so displeased 
with this act of the trustees that they said 
they would never again support them for 
any office. The trustees, finding that they 
had incurred the disapprobation of the peo- 
ple, soon unlocked the door and gave their 
consent to our having religious services in 
the house. But for a long time they would 
gather in that house every Saturday night 
and dance until nearly daylight, and on 
Sunday mornings the schoolhouse would 
be in a condition not very befitting a 
place of worship. The seats would be 
all thrown out and piled on the ground, 
the stove put in one corner of the room 
and the floor covered with dirt. 

My husband was advised by some very 
good people not to preach against dancing, 
because they thought that by such preach- 
ing certain ones might be kept away who 
otherwise would be benefited, and perhaps 
won, by the glorious gospel of the Son of 



BRIDAL AND DEATH. 135 

God. He concluded to take their advice, 
but soon learned that dancing men and 
women were not apt to be won by the 
gospel unless the Spirit of God first made 
them sick of sin, and that it was better to 
obey the injunction of Scripture which says, 
" Reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long-suf- 
fering." 



CHAPTER XL 

BAD INDIANS. 

IN the month of March two sisters who 
had been carried away by the Indians 
came to our house, and there, from the 
Hps of the eldest, I learned the following 
sad story: 

''We were crossing the plains with an 
ox-team, going to the Rocky Mountains, 
and were about fourteen miles from any 
settlement. We left camp in the morning, 
and had gone about one hundred yards 
when seventeen Indians and two squaws 
came over a little hill from the river. I 
was about fifty yards from the wagon, with 
my mother and sister aged fifteen. Four 
came toward us, and one shot an arrow at 
me, but it did not hit me. I then ran to- 

136 ^ 



BAD INDIANS. 137 

ward my brother, nineteen years old, who 
was hunting an antelope. My sister was 
walking near the wagon with father ; my 
oldest sister was driving the oxen. We 
had two cows and two yearlings tied be- 
hind the wagon. The Indians shot my 
father through the back ; he fell, and never 
moved. My oldest sister jumped out of 
the wagon with the axe, and ran to them 
and struck one on the arm and knocked 
the gun out of his hands, but another shot 
her dead. Mother ran to father and knelt 
down over him, and they shot her ; she 
fell by his side. As I ran toward my 
brother I saw him fall : an Indian called 
Medicine Water shot him. I ran back to 
the wagon. The Indians stood me by the 
side of my sister fifteen years old, and 
after they had looked at us a moment 
they shot my sister. They scalped my 
mother and oldest sister, both of whom 
had long hair. I was in hopes they 
would kill us all. One was about to 



138 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

shoot my little sister of five, but one of 
the squaws took her from before the gun 
and saved her life. My other sister, of 
seven, they decided to take with them. 
The squaw who saved my little sister took 
her on her pony, and an Indian tied the 
one of seven to his saddle behind him. 
They put me on one pony, and my other 
living sister on another. In a short time 
they tore all our clothing from us and gave 
us an old blanket each, and in this condi- 
tion we traveled nearly two weeks. We 
had something to eat once a day nearly all 
the time, but sometimes only every other 
day. 

'• The Indians carried mother's and sis- 
ter's scalps in front of us, hanging to the 
points of their spears and bows. They did 
not wash off the blood, and no one can 
imagine how we felt. 

"After a while the troops came near, and 
the savao^es left our little sisters on the 
prairie, but took us and fled. I was much 



BAD INDIANS. 1 39 

in hopes the soldiers would find us, but 
they did not then. After six days some 
of the Indians went back to that place and 
found our sisters who had been left, and 
brought them into the new camp. We 
were very glad to see them alive. Whilst 
alone on the prairie they wandered up and 
down the stream, and found the place 
where the soldiers had camped and left 
some crackers and dry bread and scraps 
of meat, on which they lived ; they told us 
that some dogs came up one night and 
walked around and smelt them, but we 
knew it must have been wolves. 

"The Indians had a fearful war-dance over 
the scalps of our mother and sister. After 
we camped for the winter each of us had 
the wood to gather for one lodge. The 
weather was very cold, and I froze my feet 
so that my toe-nails came off. We were 
whipped and starved by the squaws. Our 
only hope was that we should be found by 
the troops. After untold suffering we were 



I40 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

surrounded by the soldiers, and the Lord 
only knows how happy we were to find 
ourselves once more with white men." 

I have endeavored to give a statement 
of the facts of the painful and heartrend- 
ing endurances of these young girls as 
near as I can remember their conversation 
with me, and also from a few notes taken 
by my husband at the time. But the sad 
countenances, the melancholy tones, the 
emaciated forms, the watery eyes, the 
browned skin and parched lips, told more 
plainly the tale of wretchedness and hor- 
ror than words could possibly do. These 
girls were very intelligent, and I should 
judge that before their captivity they were 
unusually handsome. After they were re- 
captured they were taken to the nearest 
settlement, where they might receive cloth- 
ing and have an opportunity to rest and 
rally from their prostrate condition. The 
lady where they were taken said she never 
saw such objects of pity in her life ; their 



BAD INDIANS. I4I 

slender limbs, scratched and bruised and 
bleeding, were but partially covered with 
the old dingy and greasy blankets which 
they endeavored to hold around their wast- 
ed forms. 

I leave my readers to fill up the true pict- 
ure by imagining themselves in the place 
of sensitive and delicate girls. Destruction 
comes upon them while in the midst of the 
family and under the care and smiles of 
loving parents, and sweeps them away 
from all earthly peace and joy. They see 
their parents fall without the opportunity 
of saying farewell to their children. They 
see their brother drop from his horse to 
suffer and die alone on the plains, with no 
kind friend to moisten his dying lips. They 
behold their sisters pierced by Indian bul- 
lets, and witness deeds still more atrocious 
and heartrending. They stand silent and 
speechless and see the scalps torn from 
the heads of their mother and sister. 
They see the bodies mutilated in a shock- 



142 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

ing manner, then covered with their bed- 
ding, dry grass and portions of their 
wagon, and burned. All this takes place 
in a few moments, and the unfortunate 
captives find themselves tied on Indian 
ponies and moving rapidly over the plains, 
every leap of the ponies carrying them 
farther and farther from the smouldering 
remains of their parents and sisters and 
all white settlements. The Indians have no 
mercy upon them, and during the long day 
they are jolted and jostled along through 
the dry grass by the plunging ponies. 
They know it is not a dream, a horrible 
nightmare, for they see the dark hair of 
their mother and their sister waving before 
them in the breeze. They come to a stream, 
and the ponies stop to drink ; and here the 
poor sufferers look down in the clear water 
and wish they might be buried there for 
ever, but they are bound to the beasts that 
are carrying them. In a zigzag path they 
ascend the other bank, and are soon put- 



BAD INDIANS. 1 43 

tinof distance between them and the leaf- 
less branches of the trees. Finally night 
comes down upon them, and they know 
not where they are. The Indians are hap- 
py, seeming to rejoice over the misery of 
their captives. A blazing fire is made, 
which shines through the tree-tops, but 
it does not cheer the throbbinor hearts of 
the sorrow-stricken girls. Near the fire 
are driven in the ground, two stakes on 
which are hung the flowing tresses of their 
sister and the locks of their mother, which 
are slightly intermingled with gray. They 
had looked upon those locks from their 
earliest recollections, their little hands had 
dallied with them in their infancy, but they 
never expected to see that loved hair a tro- 
phy of savages — the object of a frightful In- 
dian war- dance away on the plains. Around 
these scalps their captors and tormentors 
commence their orgies, and as they whirl 
around and leap the night is made dismal 
with their unearthly yells, which drown the 



144 ^^^ y/iAA'S ON THE BORDER. 

faint moans and si;;;hs of the defenceless 
girls, who lean their weary heads upon 
each other. They cannot eat, but, weary 
and exhausted, they soon fall asleep ; yet 
in their dreams they see the bloody knife, 
and dying groans disturb their slumbers, 
Jn the morning the sun shines brightly 
upon them, but how differently are they 
situated from what they were the morn- 
ing before, when all was prosperous and 
joyous around them ! 

This is no exaggerated picture of the 
imagination ; indeed, it fails to present to 
the mind of the reader half the depths of 
misery into which these girls, and many 
others like them, have been plunged by 
these cruel murderers of the plains. 
Those who live on the extreme frontier, 
and thus prepare the way for permanent 
settlement and good society, live in con- 
stant dread (A the outrages of the Indians; 
and not without cause. 

I have seen our little town full of them, 



B,4£i /XD/AXS. 145 

their red blankets tiashing in ever\* direc- 
tion. They would purchase tobacco, cof- 
fee, sugar, bacon, fowls and fruit, and. in 
tact eventhing they desired, and \\'ith 
plenty- of money they would prowl around 
through the country, following the different 
streams, to the oreat terror of women and 
children : and often they would commit the 
most foul and bloody deeds, the blame of 
which not unfrequently they endeavored to 
charge on other tribes. 

A number of men had been kilievi vind 
scalped in the cedar hills. The settlers 
along the stream resolved to prepare for 
an attack, which they expected ever\- day. 
A partv was soon detected comino^ toward 
tlie settlement, A number of young men 
mounted their horses and rode out to meet 
them, and made si^ns for them to eo back, 
1 iioy paid no attention, but continued K> 
approach, carrying their rities in fa^nt of 
them. The settlers fired the first volley, 
killlno- two or three, and the others tlcxi. 



u> 



146 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

In a lew days I read an account of this in 
an Eastern paper, which said a party of civil 
Indians passing through a settlement, hunt- 
ing buffalo, were attacked by the settlers 
and several of them killed. This I knew 
to be a serious mistake. Why did they 
come into the white settlement to hunt 
buffalo ? 

Two of another tribe went to a cabin 
where a woman was alone with her two 
children, her husband being absent. They 
asked the woman for bread and meat and 
coffee ; she brought forward the food and 
placed it on the table, but the bread was 
corn-bread. The Indians looked at the 
woman and said, with a scowl, " Biscuit !" 
She said she had no Hour in the house, 
and could make them no biscuit. One of 
the Indians said, '' White woman lie !" The 
woman then took her husband's revolver 
from a shelf, leveled it at his head and said, 
" Now you go !" They left the house, beg- 
ging her, " Not shoot ! Good Indian !" 



BAD rNDIANS. 14/ 

Some of the Indians came to a party of 
surveyors near our town and told them 
that they had just killed three men, and 
said, " You can find them covered up in 
the sand," at such a place. The surveyors 
went to the spot, and found the dead bodies 
as the Indians had said. They were young 
men, and all had been scalped. About the 
same time one of our neighbors (his name 
was Watkins) was killed and scalped near 
his own home, and a party of freighters 
were tied to their wagons and burned. 

Settlers on the frontier who have suf- 
fered and seen others suffer thus must 
be pardoned if they show less love for 
the Indians than those who live a thou- 
sand miles away from them. 

Yet many of these cruel and bloodthirsty 
wild men of the plains have been brought 
to the Saviour, and are now not only good 
citizens, but earnest and efficient workers 
in the cause which we all so much desire 
to see progressing. 



CHAPTER XII. 

THE INFIDEL. 

DURING the winter my husband went 
to W to hold a protracted meet- 
ing. While stopping at the hotel a gentle- 
man said, " Here is Mr. B , one of the 

best men in town, but he is killing himself 
with strong drink. Go and see him ; if 
your religion can do any good for him, 
I will have some confidence in it." 

" Where is he ?" said my husband. 

"You will find him around one of the 
saloons," was the reply. 

My husband then went to one of the 

saloons and asked if Mr. B was there. 

They pointed to a sad, forlorn-looking fel- 
low and said that was Mr. B . He 

told him that he would like to go with 

148 



THE INFIDEL. 149 

him to his room, as he wanted to talk 
with him a few moments. "AH right," 

replied Mr. B , and then accompanied 

my husband to his room, which was a mis- 
erable one over a handsome store. 

My husband conversed with him, asking 
him many questions. He learned that Mr. 

B was from Vermont ; that his mother 

was living and an earnest Christian woman, 
ever praying for him ; that he knew he was 
killing himself drinking whisky; that he 
was unhappy and miserable and wanted 
to reform. Then my husband asked him 
if he had ever thought of what Jesus had 
said: "Come unto me, all ye that labor 
and are heavy laden, and I will give 

you rest." Here Mr. B burst into 

loud sobs and tears; so that his cries 
were heard in the street below. My hus- 
band then asked him if he would kneel 
down while he prayed for him. He said, 
"Yes, I will," falling on his knees at the 
same moment. 



150 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER, 

After spending a short time in prayer 

they arose, and Mr. B continued to 

wipe the tears from his eyes with his old 
sleeve, at the same time saying, " God have 
mercy on my soul !" 

That night my husband preached be- 
tween the two saloons, and the room, 
which would accommodate about one hun- 
dred and fifty persons, was crowded. Mr. 

B while listening outside fell on the 

sidewalk as though he had been shot, and 
was immediately carried into one of the 
nearest rooms. The next day my hus- 
band could not see him, as the doctor 
had forbidden any one except a nurse to 
talk with him, or even to enter his room. 

About a year from this time, while my 
husband was passing through the town in 
the stage, he asked the driver how Mr. 

B was prospering. " Nicely," was the 

reply. " He has not tasted a drop of 
whisky since the revival last winter ; he has 
two pair of horses, and is now doing well.'' 



THE INFIDEL. I51 

My husband also went to E , forty- 
five miles from our town, and preached 
every night for nearly two weeks. Sev- 
eral persons were converted and much 
good was done ; but in the place there 
was one very wicked infidel who had 
broken up several meetings and a short 
time before this had driven a minister out 
of the town. Several of the citizens 
warned my husband to be on his guard, 
for, as some souls were being converted, 
the devil would not allow this infidel to 
be quiet. 

My husband preached on Sunday morn- 
ing, and Sabbath-school immediately fol- 
lowed. At the close of the Sabbath-school, 
before the people had left the schoolhouse, 
the unbeliever reached him a New Testa- 
ment with his finger on the twenty-sixth 
verse of the fourteenth chapter of Luke, 
and said, with a sneer, " I want you to tell 
me if you would advise me to leave and 
hate my wife and children and go after 



152 SIX YEARS ON TJIL liONDER. 

Jesus Christ. I want you to come and see 
mv wife: and little children, and then tell 
me if you think 1 ought to hate them and 
love Christ." 

My husband told him he did not under- 
stand the Scriptures, i le then talked loud- 
ly and boisterously, vehemently shakini^ his 
fist, and for some time would not give my 
husband a chance to say a word. 

Finally my husband said he would like 
to ask a few cjuestions. The infidel said, 
"All right; go ahead." lie then asked 
him if he had been brought up by relig- 
ious parents. 

" I was," he replied. 

"Is your mother living?" 

" No ; she has been dead some time." 

" Do you think she was a Christian ?" 

" Yes, if r:ver there was one in this 
world." 

" Did she ever pray for you ?" 

" Yes, many a time ;" and here the infidel 
wiped a tear from his eye. At the same 



THE IXFIDEL, I 55 

inoinoiu he reached my husband one dol- 
lar, saving'. •' Take this and buy a botde ot" 
vinegar bitters ; it is the best ague medicine 
in the world." M\' husband took the money 
and thanked him. and the crowd dispersed, 
nian\- oi the \'oung people laughing" heartily. 
The next morning he went ic^ the intidel's 
house. The nian's wite seemed like an ex- 
cellent woman and he had a tanuK' ot' tine 
children, but the imbelie\er would not be 
perstiaded to surrender his heart to the 
Saviour, The next time my husband was 

at \\ he was told that the intidel had 

lett his wite and children not to go with 
Christ, but ^vitll his hired ;^irl. 



cii A r'n'.K X 1 1 1. 

OlM\ little chiifch at C was all this 
timr oratlually incrc^asiiii;- in niimbrrs, 
interest and iiseliiln(\ss. I>iit in such a 
borcU r villai^c, whc^e the only rhiirch is 
compostnl ol mnnhers Irom near!)' t^very 
Christian denomination, the pastor, and 
also his wilr, nuist always riMiUMnhc^r the 
words o\ our Lord: "He ye wise as ser- 
pents and haiinl(\ss as doves." 

One o{ our elders was a oood man, hut, 
beino" inlluenced b)' his wile, sta)ed away 
from our services and wouUl ha\ c! nothing- 
to do with the interests of the church. 
The cause o( this otfence was my hus- 
band's i)reachino- against dancing. This 
elder and his wife believed it no harm 



(, (J J J ' .V /J H.CJI'I. /Nh . 155 

to danc:, and cons^rqu^rntly <':ncoiira^(f:d 
th^'jr childr^-.n in aU/;ndin^( tlu: ni^ditjy 
r^:vf:ls, which wr:n: conducU:d in such a 
mann^:r tliat it was nrnth^rr };rojj':r nor 
saf^: for any r^^spectahh: lady to aU/:fjfJ 
them. Aft^rr th^: wholo family had ahan- 
don^:d thf: church and rented ()\\f: of their 
houses for a drinkin^-saloon, where the 
poison was daily dealt out to the weak- 
minded youn^ men of the place, rny hus- 
band asked two hrother-rninisters what 
they thought he ou^ht to do in such a 
case. They l^oth advised him to have 
them brou;/ht before the session and dealt 
with according to the rules of the Church. 
But a complete session could not be had 
without the head of this family. I Jf, hnally 

mentioned the trouble to Rev. Mr. H 

of W , who advised my husband to use 

all forbearance and patience. lor, said 
he, "Such a case of discipline would be 
likely to rend the little church in a sad 
and lamentaljle manner." He concluded 



156 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

to take this advice, and presented the 
whole matter to God, asking him to take 
the case into his own hands, to chastise 
the wrong-doers for their waywardness, 
and to bring them back penitent to the 
fold. 

In a few weeks my husband said he 
trembled to think in what a fearful way 
his prayers had been answered. One of 
the little girls of this family, about eight 
years of age, was suddenly taken sick, and 
died. The parents sent for my husband to 
conduct the funeral service. He addressed 
them sympathetically and admonished them 
to let their affections follow the spirit of 
their dear child to the better world; but 
after the funeral they remained indifferent 
to the welfare of the little band of believers 
who were struggling to hold up the stand- 
ard of purity and godliness in the dark land 
of the buffalo and the savage. 
• In a short time the oldest son was killed 
in a manner sufficient to try the faith of 



GOD'S DISCIPLINE. 157 

any parent. The boy was about seven- 
teen years of age a member of the 
church and naturally a good, quiet boy, 
but, being allowed by his parents to spend 
his evenings around the drinking-saloons 
and to attend the low and boisterous 
dances, with the excuse that children must 
have some resort for amusement, he soon 
concluded that in order to be a man he 
must, like other young men of the place, 
carry a revolver. He accordingly pur- 
chased one and took it to the saloon. 
He had been there but a short time be- 
fore he fell into a dispute with a border 
ruffian. In order to show his bravery and 
intimidate his opponent, he raised his re- 
volver with a sort of flourish, but was 
instantly shot through the head by the 
other. 

The boy had no idea of shooting, for 
there was no load in his revolver, but he 
had never learned the fact that on the 
border a man must never say "shoot" 



158 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

while- disputing with another, unless he is 
an expert in using the weapon and intends 
to shoot, and that quickly. He did not 
know that a revolver was a thousand times 
more of an enemy than a friend to an in- 
experienced youth like himself. 

This was a terrible blow to the parents, 
but still their hearts were not subdued. 

After this the elder daughter was seized 
with a violent cough. She traveled sev- 
eral hundred miles, and consulted differ- 
ent physicians, but with no good effect ; it 
soon became evident that she must die. 
After she gave up the last hope of recov- 
ering, and her parents knew she would 
soon leave them, they sent for my hus- 
band. As he entered the room where the 
young woman lay he knew that death was 
calling. Her long yellow hair, which at 
one time barely escaped falling into the 
hands of the Indians, lay in golden waves 
on the pillow, but, instead of the health- 
tinted cheeks that she had so often carried 



GOD'S DISCIPLINE. 1 59 

to the dancing-room, there was now the 
pallor of death. She grasped my husband 
by the hand and through a flood of tears 
looked him in the face, but said not a 
word. 

In a moment the mother said, "You 
must forgive my daughter." He said he 
had nothing to forgive, but she must look 
to God for pardon in the name of his well- 
beloved Son, whose blood " cleanseth from 
all sin." 

After the minister had read the Bible 
and prayed with the dying girl and the sor- 
rowing parents and brothers and sister, the 
departing one faintly uttered words like 
these : 

" Oh, when I had health and strength, 
how litde did I think of this! If I had 
my life to live again, how differently would 
I spend the precious moments ! But now 
I must die. God have mercy — have mercy 
— mercy ! Save my soul !" 

As the dying girl said these words the 



l60 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

tears were falling like raindrops from the 
eyes of her father. 

When my husband came home, I hasten- 
ed to the house. That night the poor peni- 
tent peacefully passed away to join the 
blood-washed company in the presence 
of " the sinner's Friend." Her young 
friends came in, not to greet her within 
the merry walls of mirth, but to bid a 
long and last adieu to her who had so 
often added ringing music to the fleeting 
pleasures of the dance. 

" Old Time will fling his clouds ere long 

Upon those sunny eyes ; 
The voice whose every word is song 

Will set itself to sighs ; 
Your quiet slumbers, hopes and fears 

Will chase their rest away ; 
To-morrow you'll be shedding tears : 

Laugh on, laugh on, to-day." 

The next Wednesday evening this Scotch- 
man and his wife were at the prayer-meet- 
ing, and for the first time for over a year 



GOD'S DISCIPLINE. l6l 

we heard his voice in prayer. It is bless- 
ed for the Christian to know that God 
deals with him as a loving father, and not 
as an angry judge. Some men's sins go 
to judgment before them, and some fol- 
low after. Blessed are all whose sins go 
over before them, for in the day of reck- 
oning they will not be called to account 
for them. 

Some time before this the Rev. Mr. Wil- 
son came to this region, and was located 
twenty-five miles from our town. He built 
a little house on a claim in another county, 
intending to send for his family. But it was 
soon completely demolished by one of the 
terrific storms which are so common on the 
plains. The boards of which it was built 
were scattered in such a manner that many 
of them were never found. 

After he had been some time at our 

county-seat preaching the gospel of Jesus 

he said to one of the leading members of 

the church, " You business men are all 
11 



GOD'S DISCIPLINE. 1 63 

down in the old farm-wagon and invoked 
the divine blessing. His prayer was hum- 
ble, personal and earnest. He prayed for 
his loved ones far away, and my husband, 
my children and myself were not forgotten. 
Until late in the night he continued to tell 
my husband about God's dealings with him 
and how his prayers had that day been 
answered. He had been praying for God 
to provide some means for him to go with 
his baggage to the nearest railroad-station 
— a distance of thirty-five miles. He said 
that during the day his heavenly Father 
whispered gently to his soul, and said, 
" My son, don't fret and worry ; I will take 
care of you." And now he felt very thank- 
ful and happy, and realized that the arms of 
Jesus' love were around him. 

W and O were fields that were 

all white and ready to harvest. Mr. Wil- 
son, though somewhat advanced in years, 
possessed as much vitality as a young man. 
He traveled on foot from one town to the 



164 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

Other, a distance of twelve miles, and it 
seemed too bad for such a man to be com- 
pelled to leave such a field for the want of 
an adequate support at the hands of the 

church. A gentleman at O said that 

when he heard Mr. Wilson preach he al- 
ways had something to carry away with 
him. 

I know I am safe In saying — and no per- 
son of experience will say otherwise — that 
a minister with a family can live better on 
a salary of two hundred and fifty dollars 
a year in an Eastern town than he can on 
one of five hundred a year on the Western 
border. 

The next Saturday my husband, not hav- 
ing a horse at this time, walked to O , 

about forty miles, to attend Brother Wil- 
son's appointment. On Monday, while re- 
turning, he took the wrong road and went 
several miles out of his way. By doing 
this he came to a settlement late in the 
afternoon, and stopped at the first cabin 



GOD'S DISCIPLINE. 165 

and asked if he could get some dinner. 
The woman of die house went out into 
the field and gathered a few ears of worm- 
eaten sod-corn. This she grated and made 
a little bread, of which, with the addition 
of some venison, he made a good dinner, 
and paid her fifty cents. He learned that 
there were several families living in the 
settlement, and that there had never been 
a sermon preached in the place. He 
thought there was now an opportunity to 
do good ; so he resolved to stay and 
preach for the people that night. At 
dark a good congregation gathered in 
one of the cabins to listen to the glori- 
ous old gospel of the Son of God. 

The next day he visited the people from 
house to house, and at night preached in 
another cabin. The next morning one of 
the men sent his boy with two ponies to 
forward him on his journey a distance of 
five miles. So his losing his way was over- 
ruled for good by the God of providence. 



I 



CHAPTER XIV. 

DEATH IX THE HOME. 



N the followino- Auo^ust one of our twin- 

o o 



boys, now nearly four years old, was 
seized with membranous croup, and after 
four days of extreme suffering died. When 
he was first taken, we thought it was only 
common croup and were not particularly 
alarmed. On Thursday a gentleman came 
to the house and told my husband that the 
next Sunday he was to be married, and 
asked him if he could perform the cere- 
mony. He replied that, as he had no ap- 
pointment at that hour, he could do so. 
But he did not know that God had made 
an appointment for him to attend at that 
hour which would be one of the saddest 
he ever attended in his life. It was on 

166 



DEATH IN THE HOME. 1 6/ 

Saturday that our boy died. It was the 
first time death had broken our Httle band 
in the land of strangers, and it was so sud- 
den that we were stunned by the terrible 
blow. We could only whisper, " Thy will, 
O God, be done !" 

We sent to W for a minister. Al- 
though we had been so long in that region, 
still the nearest clergyman was twenty-five 
miles away. He reached our house about 
the hour at which my husband had agreed 
to perform the marriage ceremony. He 
was also a missionary of our Church, and 

had been at W only a few months. 

He preached a very comforting sermon, 
and I shall never forget his words to me 
as we left the house to otq to the orrave : 
" Do not grieve about your child : we are 
short-lived creatures at best." 

As we rode toward the graveyard I said 
to my husband (and oh the bitter anguish 
of the thought!), "This is the last ride we 
shall all take together." 



1 68 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

In a short time from this we had a visit 
from the Rev. Mr. Harsen and wife, whose 
place of residence and missionary field were 

sixty miles from C . I can assure my 

readers that a visit from such Christian 
friends, at so sad a time and in a place 
like this, was very comforting. 

The first time my husband met this good 

man was at C , about one year before 

we moved there. He preached in the 
morning the first sermon that was ever 
heard in that town. His subject was "the 
penitent thief," a fitting one for such a 
place. My husband preached in the after- 
noon. Mr. Harsen at this time was sixty 
miles from home, looking after the scat- 
tered lambs of the fold. One very cold 
day that same winter my husband was 
hauling lumber. Mr. Harsen saw him, 
and, pulling off his overcoat, reached it 
to him, saying, " Put this on ; I see you 
need it." That night my husband slept 
on the ground ; the wind blew cold from 



DEATH IN THE HOME. 169 

the north, bringing sleet, and then snow ; 
and, had it not been for that coat, he would 
have suffered very much. 

At another time this same servant of 
God went on horseback to a poor settle- 
ment on Sunday afternoon to preach 
Christ and also to break the bread of 
life to a little company of believers who 
had no pastor. As he was returning the 
sun went down and the heavens were cov- 
ered with heavy black clouds. When he 
was about six miles from his home he lost 
his way, and was soon wandering around 
in the tall grass, feeling his way through 
the intense darkness of the night. At 
this time his congregation w^ere waiting 
patiently for their minister ; but, as he did 
not come, they became very anxious and 
desirous of knowing why he was thus de- 
tained. Could the wolves have devoured 
him, or was he lost ? Yes, he was actually 
lost. About the middle of the nig-ht he 
came to an old cabin where no one lived, 



170 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

and after tying his horse to a sunflower- 
stalk he found a shelter until morning. 

In his town or vicinity there were few, if 
any, poor and sorrowing ones who were 
not comforted by the presence, counsel 
and prayers of this devoted servant of 
Jesus. At one time he invited my hus- 
band to ofo with him to make a few calls. 
The first house they entered was a little 
hovel. The man of the house was very 
low with consumption, and his wife made a 
living by washing. Mr. Harsen conversed 
kindly and freely with the sick man, then 
knelt down by his side and besought the 
mercy of Jehovah to rest upon him and to 
bless him and his family, and just before 
leaving he put some money in the hand 
of the poor heartbroken woman. 

Althouorh this devoted servant of Christ 
is now laboring for the Master in the East, 
there are in the West thousands who will 
remember him with love and gratitude as 
long as they live. A thousand just such 



DEA TH IN THE HOME. 1 7 1 

earnest, self-sacrificing ministers are need- 
ed to-day in the great West. 

During his visit at the time of our afHic- 
tion he preached for my husband three 
times, and visited a good many of those 
with whom he was acquainted. Many of 
the rough and ungodly old frontiersmen 
were glad to see him, because they re- 
spected him as a true and sincere servant 
of the most hioh God. 

His wife was an excellent singer, and 
one of those sweet and pleasant women 
who are so fitted to drive gloom and sad- 
ness from the hearts of all with whom they 
associate. When they left our home, we 
watched their buggy until it disappeared 
over the hill, nearly a mile away. Then 
we asked God to go with them and to bless 
them abundantly. 

About two weeks from this time my 
youngest child — a little girl whom I had 
named Laura, after my dear departed 
prairie-sister — was suddenly taken with 



172 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

the same disease. On the Sabbath-day I 
had been several miles from home on 
horseback to assist the parents of a child 
who had just died ; they also had another 
child very sick. When I returned at night 
my little darling came running to meet me, 
and seemed so full of life that I did not 
dream she was so soon to be taken from 
me. Being very weary, I retired early. 
After my husband came home from church 
he said he feared she was taking the croup, 
for she had a fever and was covered with 
an unnatural perspiration. His words 
startled me as though the house had 
been shaken by an earthquake. We sent 
for some of our neighbors and endeavored 
to check the formation of the false mem- 
brane, but all in vain. 

In the morning my husband went to 

W in the stage for a physician, but 

at night he returned alone. The physician 
arrived the next day. He looked at her 
and shook his head, saying, '' She has lost 



DEATH IN THE HOME. 173 

her voice." I said, " Oh, doctor, can you 
do nothing for my child ? Must she die ?" 
He said, " There is only one hope, and that 
is very slight : a few such cases have been 
saved by the surgical operation of trache- 
otomy, and I will try it if you think best." 
We told him, if that was the only hope, to 
do the best he could. In a few moments 
he was ready. Several of the neighbors 
were in the room. My husband and I 
went into another room and fell on our 
knees. In a short time the doctor tapped 
on the door and said, '' It is all over." I 
sprang to my feet, ran to the door, and as 
I opened it I said, "Is she alive?" He said, 
" No, she is gone." I went into the room to 
embrace the lifeless form of my dear child, 
who two days before seemed so full of life. 
We knew it was God's will and we endeav- 
ored to be reconciled, but we feel the ach- 
ing void until the present time. The phy- 
sician, who was an upright Christian man, 
then read a portion of the Holy Scriptures 



1/4 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

and prayed God to give us strength to en- 
dure the sad bereavement. 

We could have no sermon preached over 

our precious babe, as Mr. M had left 

W and we knew of no minister nearer 

than thirty-five miles. But one of our 
elders prayed at the house, and also at 
the grave, where we laid her down on her 
second birthday, by the side of her little 
brother, and both were buried close to the 
grave of our dear friend " Duck," whose 
arms had so often clasped the little ones 
to as pure a heart as ever beat within a 
woman's breast. It seemed to me that she 
would still love and protect my darling 
babes ; and would they not need it in 
such a cemetery as this, with graves of 
murderers and thieves on every side ? 

But was not this viewing^ this serious 
subject from a wrong standpoint? Were 
not the souls of my precious children in 
the world of glory, near and dear to the 
spirit of my friend who died in my arms ? 



DEATH IN THE HOME. 1/5 

But one blow after another had fallen upon 
me, until, like Job's friends, I felt like sitting 
down on the ground seven days in silence. 
The sweetest earthly music had died away 
in the darkness of the tomb. Two of the 
bright flowers on the family tree had been 
smitten by the frost of death. It was au- 
tumn to my poor trembling, shivering soul, 
and the cold drops were raining on the 
leaves already fallen. 

After this two others of our children 
were very sick, and for a long while we 
watched them day and night ; but finally, 
with God's blessing, they both recovered. 
Our faithful friend, the doctor, would ac- 
cept of no compensation for his unwearied 
services. 

Shortly after this a bill of ten dollars for 
poor little Laura's coffin was handed in, 
and we had no money to pay it. Other 
small bills were pressing heavily upon us, 
and for a great many days we carried this 
financial burden ; it seemed as though we 



l/C) S/X r/'./A'.s (KY rill- A'('A7)AA*. 

foiiKl not ilispost' ol it. I'in.ilU in\ liiis- 
Iwiul rcsoK chI to w lilo U> a hul\ in ( )hii> 
\\\\o luul wnilcMi lis scxrral \ cm y cMU\)iir- 
aiL^iiiL; KitcMs, aiul who luul. in c^onntuiion 
\\\{\\ tlu^ olluM- hulii\s ot iho ("luirch lo whic-li 
slu' hrK>ni;c\l. scmU ns nuirh aul allrr ihr 
i^rasshopjHM' S(.'(>ni'i^c\ and loll Ium' 1u>\\ wc 
^\ cM'o sitiiahHl. In a low days wo toc'cmxchI 
tort\ i.K>llars. which holpod us i^nwlK' in our 
siiaiUMiod and cMubarrassiuL; rircnunstanros. 

Wo wtM'c^ now ri\HM\ini^ onl\ ihrcn- hun- 
ch't\l dollars j>cm' \oar IrcMU iho Ht>ard ol 
J lonu^ Missions. Tho iwhu'lion was mado 
on acccnnU o{ \\\c nian\- rails and llu^ srar- 
citN' ot funds. .At such a distance^ from tho 
railroad all necessaries — orocorios especial- 
h' — wore st>ld at an cMiornunis price. 

About this time a nouul; niinistor was 

sent lo W , bul roniainod o\\\\ lluw^ 

nionths. 1 \c told my husband ho did nc>t 
think it was his dut\" lo roniain liuM'o and 
ruin his health. He was a hue soruioni/or, 
bul had not nuich ot a niissioiKir\'s s[)iril. 



Our town and nt:\'A\\i()r\v)<A sc<:nn<:d now 
lo \)<: (.\v.i\\'^\n'^ wcry r;j.j>id)y for t.Iv-. ])<A.V:r. 
It is trijf: th<: rourdi \jor(\<:r r;lr:mr:nt con- 
tinued with us, i^ut now min^ded wit!) it 
were the better principles of tlie ;/ospel 
of Christ. We Ijud scattered religious 
literature for miles in every direction ; orje 
could scarcely enter a cabin without find- 
in;/ tracts from our Hoard of l^iblication. 
]'*eople seemed to he thirsting for th^: bread 
of eternal life. QuiV: frequently about this 
time they would come a distance of t^-.n 
miles to hear the v/ord of ^'^od. 

Three (Quaker l^retljren v/ere passing 
through our town on their way to an In- 
dian agency, but stopped over the Sabbath. 
My husband, having an appointment to 
preach in a new school-house four miles 
east, asked the Quaker brothers if they 
would go and conduct the service. They 
said they would, and my husband went fiva 
miles in another direction and orr^anized a 
Sabbath-school. The Quakers v/eni early 

12 



178 S/X VEAKS ON THK BORDKR. 

to the house, and, as they saw no one mov- 
ing and only a few Httle cabins in the dis- 
tance, they thought they might as well go 
back, for there would be no one there that 
day to preach to. But in a few moments 
wagons were seen coming from every di- 
rection, and in a short time the house was 
crowded. 



CHAPTER XV. 

A BLESSED HARVEST. 

ABOUT the first of the next November 
. my husband again commenced a 
series of services and preached every 
night, holding meetings of inquiry after 
the sermons. During the first week there 
seemed to be but sHght interest manifested, 
but the httle band of Christians be^an to 
pray with more earnestness. The prayer 
of a few Christians, both by day and by 
night, was, '' O Lord, revive thy work ! 
Convict these Christless souls, and may 
we hear them crying to thee for mercy !" 
One night the schoolhouse was crowded, 
and after my husband had preached from 
the text, " We beseech you in Christ's stead 
be ye reconciled to God," a number arose 

179 



l8o SIX YE A lis ON THE BORDER. 

for prayers, and some said they had de- 
cided to come over to the Lord's side. 
Strong men wept in every part of the 
house. Several Httle children arose and 
said they wanted to love Jesus and go to 
heaven. While some one was speaking 
a lady began to cry and scream in such 
a manner that some thought she was dying 
or going into a fit. I went to her and said, 

*' Mrs. B , do not allow yourself to be 

so excited ; please do be quiet," and other 
ladies endeavored to pacify her; but, like 
blind Bartimeus, she cried the louder for 
Jesus to have mercy on her soul and par- 
don her sins. She sprang to her feet ; her 
hat fell from her head ; her hair dropped 
down over her shoulders and the large 
tears rolled over her cheeks. A profane 
skeptic said either God Almighty or the 
devil was there, he did not know which. 
But in a few minutes she became calm, 
took her seat, and after looking over the 
congregation a moment she began to sing 



A BLESSED HARVEST. l8l 

"Whiter than Snow." On her counte- 
nance there was a heavenly smile such as 
never beamed there before. She was a 
fine singer, but I am sure she had never 
sung as she sang that night. There was 
not a dry eye in the house, and many 
sobbed aloud. About a dozen young 
ladies who previous to this had cared 
but little for anything else than to romp 
and dance now kneeled down and asked 
God to wash them in Jesus' blood and 
make them "whiter than snow." By this 
time crowds were gathered around every 
window. The service continued until near- 
ly midnight. 

This glorious work went on until the 
place seemed completely revolutionized. 
The saloons were comparatively deserted ; 
quietness and decorum existed throughout 
the town and country — not only on the 
Sabbath, but also during the week. Twen- 
ty converts united with our little church, and 
two other churches received a good many 



1 82 SJX y^AA'S ON THE BORDER. 

members. One church had been organized 
previous to the revival, and the other after, 
but, as the inhabitants of the place consist- 
ed largely of a floating population, many 
who received the blessing and participated 
in the revival did not unite with any church, 
as they expected soon to leave the town. 
Thus the spirit and the power of the gos- 
pel were carried in burning hearts to other 
places, and the great day alone will reveal 
the amount of good accomplished during 
this glorious refreshintr from on hioh. 

When so many of the young men and 
women of the place came forward to re- 
ceive the ordinance of baptism and unite 
with the church on profession of their faith, 
we indeed saw the silver lining to the black 
and heavy clouds which had been hanging 
so heavily over us for these many years. 
It had been a long, dark night, but the rosy 
lioht of the mornino- could now be seen ; 
and it was with great joy that we could 
exclaim, " * The winter is past, the rain is 



A BLESSED HARVEST. 1 83 

over and gone ; the flowers appear on the 
earth ; the time of the singing of birds is 
come, and the voice of the turtle is heard 
in our land.' 'They that sow in tears shall 
reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weep- 
eth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless 
come again with rejoicing, bringing his 
sheaves with him.' " 

After the revival the people made us a 
very surprising donation. Although the 
night chosen by our friends was cold and 
disagreeable, they came from miles around 
and filled our little house, and spread a 
bountiful table with more luxuries than 
we had seen since coming from the East — 
roast chicken, cakes, pies and fruit in abun- 
dance ; and when the company dispersed, 
they left us not only many valuable articles 
of provision, but also about forty dollars 
in money. One man, who was not a 
church-member, said, " Mr. Rideout has 
preached and labored among us all these 
years, and we have paid him but a mere 



1 84 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

trifle. He has been willing to rough it and 
live as the rest of us have lived, and cer- 
tainly we should begin to pay him for his 
services." 

The people were now greatly encour- 
aged; the prospects for a railroad to the 
town were good, and we all believed that 
our town and neighborhood had seen their 
darkest days. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SHADOW AND SUNSHINE. 

AS the soft south wind began to blow 
XI. over the prairie, bringing with it gen- 
tle showers, and the daisies and the violets 
were seen in sheltered places along the 
streams, and the branches of the trees 
were so loaded with blackbirds I could 
almost imagine them as being burdened 
with animated fruit, and the clear water 
of Fall Creek was splashing musically over 
the rocks, forming the falls from which it de- 
rived its name, there was only gloom and 
sadness locked in my own heart. I say 
" locked " because I never told my grief to 
others. While I knew that " earth has no 
sorrow that heaven cannot heal," I also 
knew that earth has sorrows that heaven 
does not heal in this life. 

185 



1 86 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

When Jesus said to his disciples, " In the 
world ye shall have tribulation," I believe 
he meant until the end of this life ; and, 
while there are thousands of happy and 
rejoicing Christians in our world, I believe 
our heavenly Father has, and until the end 
of time will continue to have, his suffering 
witnesses. When our Saviour was on earth, 
he had not even a place to rest his weary 
head: "Jesus a man of constant grief, a 
mourner all his days." And many of the 
blood-washed company who are now prais- 
ing God among " the spirits of the just 
made perfect" passed all the way through 
this world in the bloodstained footsteps of 
their blessed Master : 

" Once they were mourners here below, 
And wet their couch with tears." 

One bright day my little boy, whose mate 
had died, came in and said, " Mamma, where 
is Percy ? Why don't he come home ?" 

I told him Percy was in heaven. He 



SHADOW AND SUNSHINE. 1 8/ 

then looked up with tears in his eyes and 
said, 

" Will he never come back to play with 
me any more?" 

I replied, 

'' No ; you will never see your little broth- 
er again in this world." 

He then said, 

" I want him to come home, so I can give 
him some of my pretty flowers." 

After this, for months, as I would see my 
dear lonely little boy at play, the words 
of Mrs. Hemans kept ringing constantly 
through my mind : 

" Go, call my brother back to me : 
I cannot play alone. 
The spring returns with flower and bee : 
Where has my brother gone?" 

This spring I often scattered tears over 
the little grave on the lonely prairie. How 
sweet were the flowers that bloomed over 
the lowly bed of my sleeping children ! 
How richly did the setting sun shine upon 



1 88 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

the high waves of the rolling prairie ! 
What beautiful birds did I see around 
those graves ! How lightly did the ten- 
der blades of grass bow before the breeze! 
Yet what deathly silence reigned there ! I 
scarcely dared to speak aloud ; tears flowed 
without a sigh or a groan. Even my 
prayers were smothered to a whisper. 
None but the loving mother who has 
laid her little ones away under like cir- 
cumstances can understand my grief But 
in the midst of all this sorrow there was 
one joyful thought: "There is sweet rest 
in heaven." This thought was particular- 
ly precious, on account of the fact that for 
more than five years I had been sur- 
rounded by those whose daily cry seemed 
to be, 

" O land of rest, for thee I sigh ! 
When will the moment come 
When I shall lay my armor by 
And dwell with Christ at home ?" 

On every flower that looked sweetly to- 



SHADOW AND SUNSHINE. 1 89 

ward the sun, on every leaf that fluttered 
in the breeze and on every sunbeam that 
smiled through our window-pane seemed 
to be written the precious word " Rest." 
I heard it in every murmur of the wind 
and in every warble of the lark. I saw 
it on the pale features of my friends as 
one after the other their weary heads 
were laid on their coflin-pillow. There 
were a few wealthy ones in the vicinity, 
but on every side were poverty, sickness 
and death. 

One day my husband was called to go to 
an adjoining county to attend the funeral 
of a young man who had died with pneu- 
monia, and his little nephew, who died 
about the same time. This family were 
the only white people who lived in the 

county. A great many went from C 

to the one sad and gloomy home in H 

County. My husband said it was a scene 
he could never forget. The dug-out was 
long and narrow and the day was cloudy 



190 SIX YEARS ON THE BONDER. 

and dark. In the end farthest from the 
door, in one corner, lay the body of the 
young man whose spirit had returned " to 
God who gave it," and directly opposite, 
in the other corner, lay his brother — anoth- 
er young man — very low with the same dis- 
ease. My husband endeavored to talk with 
him about his spiritual condition and his 
prospects of "glory, honor and immortality 
beyond the grave," but it was so dark that 
the face of the young man could scarcely 
be seen. My husband, by stooping very 
low, could barely detect the feeble motion 
of his lips and the occasional lifting of his 
eyelids, but could not understand a word 
he endeavored to utter. He then prayed 
for the Lord to raise him up ; and in due 
time God answered his prayer, for the 
young man was restored to health. 

The father of the young men stood weep- 
ing in the centre of the dug-out, and his 
father — an old man of more than eighty 
years — leaned his wrinkled forehead against 



SHADOW AND SUNSHINE. I9I 

the wall, of ^' Mother Earth." There were 
present several women who lived in our 
county, but near this dug-out. How pale 
and wretched they looked ! Fever and 
ague seemed to be written upon the pallid 
cheeks, the bloodless lips and the sunken 
eyes. On a dry knoll near the dug-out they 
lowered the young man into his grave, and 
his little nephew by his side, the first known 
grave of a white man in this county. 

" Howl, O ye winds, around this grave, 
And, grasses, burn, and, coyotes, bark ! 
Ye cannot wake the sleeping ones 

Till Christ shall bid them rise, depart !" 

Yet with these dark shadows all was not 
gloom, and we turned from them to fields 
on which the bright sunshine gleamed. 

This summer our Sabbath- school was in 
a flourishing condition ; nearly every one 
seemed to be interested in having it pros- 
per. On the Fourth of July we had a nice 
picnic for the school. The merchants gave 
candy, raisins, nuts, etc., to make the litde 



192 SIX YE A US ON THE BORDER. 

ones happy. The children formed a pro- 
cession at the schoolhouse and marched to 
a lovely grove by the side of a sparkling 
little stream, carrying a banner on which 
was inscribed " Stand up for Jesus." Seats 
had been previously arranged, and a large 
company gathered in the grove and the 
day passed pleasantly to all. It was a 
great pleasure to us to see so many tak- 
ing such an interest in the Sabbath- school. 
During the five years my little class had 
increased from two — and they my own chil- 
dren — to more than twenty, all happy little 
boys and girls except one, and she an In- 
dian girl nearly grown, but as childish as 
any in the class. A lady in the town gave 
her a night-dress trimmed a little with em- 
broidery ; the next Sabbath she wore it to 
school as an outer dress, tied around the 
waist with a pink ribbon. She always paid 
good attention, and was greatly pleased 
with the little papers and cards given 
her. 



SJ/AJJOIV AND SUNSHINE. 1 93 

We could only account for the fact that 
nearly all the people of the place seemed 
to be interested in the church and Sabbath- 
school by believing that it was the work of 
God in fulfillmrmt of his promise that his 
word should not return unto him void, but 
that it should accomplish that whereunto 
he sent it. 

One Sunday morning about three years 
before this time my husband left our ** Fam- 
ily Bible" in the schoolhouse, intending to 
preach again in the evening, but during the 
day some rough and ungodly fellows went 
in and tore the Bible in pieces, scattering 
the leaves from one side of the house to 
the other and trampling them beneath their 
feet. Near the door, and nearly covered 
with mud, lay the covers, still bearing the 
inscription " Holy Bible," but by ungodly 
hands they had been robbed of their pre- 
cious contents. That Bible we had brought 
with us from the old " Pine Tree State ;" it 

contained a concordance and a dictionary, 
1:^ 



194 ^^^ YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

also essays on the authenticity of the Script- 
ures and Doddridge's sermons on the evi- 
dences of Christianity and our Family Rec- 
ord. We considered it a serious loss. 
But the devil could not destroy the work 
in this way, for the leaven was already 
working- in many hearts, and with God's 
blessing it continued to work until many 
precious souls were brought into the king- 
dom of our Lord Jesus Christ. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 

THE following summer my labors seem- 
ed as arduous as ever. My husband 
made it a rule to visit all strangers as soon 
as they moved into the neighborhood and 
invite them to our services; accordingly, 
on the Sabbath, people often came six or 
eight miles to hear the gospel. 

One man lived five miles from town, in a 
little log cabin. He was very poor. He had 
a yoke of oxen, but one died, and he work- 
ed the other alone. My husband was pass- 
ing the cabin, and resolved to go in and 
talk with the family about their souls' sal- 
vation. This man was considered one of 
the worst men living in that region ; he 
was known by the name of " Old John." 



196 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

When my husband went into the cabin the 
family received him very kindly, and after 
conversing a while with them he asked if 
they had a Bible. The woman went to a 
box, took out an old leather-covered Bible 
and handed it to him. He read a portion 
from that blessed book, and then knelt 
down and prayed for the blessing of God 
to rest on the family. 

In a short time this poor man purchased 
another ox, and regularly every Sabbath he 
came with his wife and little girl and sev- 
eral of his neighbors and their children to 
church and Sabbath-school. The whole 
family united with the church, and seemed 
to rejoice that the Lord had sent some 
one to reclaim them and draw them to the 
Saviour. They had been members of the 
Presbyterian Church in other days. 

My husband preached in the schoolhouse 
every Sabbath morning, and we had Sab- 
bath-school in the afternoon, which he did 
not attend, as he had appointments at dif- 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 1 97 

ferent places in the country to preach in 
the afternoon, but he came back to town 
and preached in the evening. Many who 
came to the morning service, wishing to 
remain to the evening meeting, would go 
home with us ; and thus the day which was 
given for rest was often for me the hardest 
day of the seven. I generally prepared 
dinner for from six to twelve besides my 
own family, and, as my husband was the 
only minister of any denomination nearer 
than twenty-five miles, we had a large 
number of callers during the week. 

Often poor people coming into the neigh- 
borhood without home or money would 
come to our house for shelter until 
they could build a cabin or dug-out, and 
against such our doors were never closed. 
During the rainy season those who lived 
on the bottom lands were often driven 
from their dug-outs by rising streams 
flooding the low lands of the country. I 
have seen the water flowing through the 



198 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

tops of large cottonwood trees with the 
force of a mighty river, and the bottom 
lands would resemble great lakes. Dur- 
ing such times as these many would seek 
shelter beneath our roof. 

Mr. M , who had recently come from 

the East, looked at this with surprise, if not 
with indignation. Visiting us when our 

house was full, he said that Mrs. M 

would not be imposed upon in such a 
manner a single moment. I told him to 
wait until they had been in the West a 
year, and perhaps they would both think 
differently. 

Some time after this a young man who 
was more willing to beg than to work called 

at the house of Brother M late in the 

evening and wanted supper, lodging and 

breakfast. Mr. M said, "We cannot 

accommodate you ; you will have to go to 
the hotel." But the young man replied 
that he had no money, and insisted on 
staying, claiming a right to the minister's 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. I99 

hospitality. Brother M then took the 

young man to the hotel and told the land- 
lord to furnish him supper, bed and break- 
fast and he would pay the bill. It is no 
light affair for one who claims to be led by 
the Spirit of Christ to turn away one who 
asks for food and shelter. 

This summer an aged minister and his 
wife moved into our town, where they lived 
a short time, and then they built a sod 
house. Such a house is made by plough- 
ing a piece of prairie and then cutting the 
sod in square pieces and laying it up like 
bricks in a brick house. This is covered 
with dirt, leaving the ground for a floor. 
The old lady hung sheets around the walls, 
which, after hanging her pictures, gave the 
cabin a neat, cozy appearance. She said 
it was much better than no home, but she 
lived in daily dread of visits from snakes. 

A short time before this one of our 
neighbor's children — their only girl, about 
three years old — was playing near the door 



200 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

when she was bitten on her foot by a very 
small rattlesnake. The bite was so trifling 
that her mother did not apprehend the least 
danger, and consequently she did nothing 
for the child for several hours. As the 
wound, which at first resembled two very 
slight scratches of a pin, began to assume 
a more serious aspect, and her foot became 
seriously swollen and inflamed, they sent 
for a physician, who told the parents that 
the child was in a very critical condition. 
After several months of extreme suffering 
the little girl began to recover, but it was 
feared she would be a cripple, as a large 
portion of the flesh dropped from her foot 
and ankle. If the mother had been sup- 
plied with spirits of ammonia, and had 
applied it immediately to the wound, how 
much misery she would have saved her 
little daughter ! How essential it is for 
parents to watch their children and apply 
the proper remedies, both physical and 
moral, before it is too late ! 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 201 

A business man of our village came to 
my husband and said, " There is a man in 
the town whom I have decided to kill." 
He then held up a new revolver, which 
he said he had purchased for that very 
purpose. My husband, already knowing 
something about the cause of this hasty 
decision on the part of this man, asked 
him why he had decided to commit such 
a terrible deed. 

The man replied that he had hired Mr. 

C and had been paying him good 

wages, but that, instead of taking an in- 
terest in his business, he had become won- 
derfully interested in his family. 

My husband said, " Does your wife care 
anything for him ?" — *' Indeed she does," 
was the reply ; " she loves him dearly, for 
she told me so this morning." He also 

said he had forbidden Mr. C to speak 

to his wife, but it did no good, as they im- 
proved every opportunity to talk to each 
other. "And now," he continued, " I am 



202 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

determined to kill him, if I do not live 
another minute." 

My husband said, ''You must not do it. 
You must not make yourself wretched for 
life. You had better give up your wife, if 
she cares more for him than she does for 
you. Think of the many poor fellows who 
are now wretched and miserable on account 
of like deeds performed in such haste. If 
you take the life of this man, your wife 
will certainly leave you. You will always 
be followed by rippling streams of blood, 
and his dying groans will disturb the latest 
moments of your life. Now, take the ad- 
vice of a friend, and remember that if you 
commit such a crime you will repent of it a 
thousand times." 

The man answered that perhaps that 
was all true, but he would rather die 
than have his family broken up by such 
an intruder. 

My husband advised him to rule his 
spirit and not be hasty ; to ask God to di- 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 203 

rect him aright, to converse with his wife 
on the subject of her duty to God and to 
God's law and call, and to pray with her 
and ask her to love Jesus. 

He said he would try it. He did so, and 
the next Sabbath they both united with the 

church ; and in less than a week Mr. C 

left the place, and we saw him no more. 

" When Christians pray the devil runs, 
And leaves the field to Zion's sons." 

About this time my husband received a 
note from a gentleman who lived six miles 
in the country, saying that a member of 
his family had become very anxious con- 
cerning the future life, and desired him to 
come over immediately. When he arrived 
at the house the lady told him that her 
daughter, about fourteen years of age, was 
so distressed on account of her sins that 
she could neither eat nor sleep, but con- 
tinued to cry day and night. Her mother 
said that for several weeks her daupfhter's 



204 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

grief had become deeper and deeper, and 
all on account of the belief that she was 
too great a sinner to be saved. My hus- 
band conversed with her a long time, en- 
deavoring to explain the Scriptures and 
show her that she must put her trust in 
Christ for the forgiveness of her sins, until 
she said she began to feel as though she 
might be saved. After he prayed with 
them she became quite joyful, and asked 
her mother if she could join the church. 
But her mother thought she had better 
wait a while ; she did not think it best for 
young people to be too hasty. But the 
girl soon united with the church, and what 
a faithful little Christian she continued to 
be! 

One place where my husband preached 
was in a schoolhouse three miles from this 
girl's home, and every Sabbath on which 
he held service there she came to hear the 
gospel which she loved. One Sabbath 
morning the congregation gathered, but 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 205 

Emma was not there. My husband won- 
dered why she was absent ; but about the 
time he commenced his sermon he looked 
out of the window and saw her coming 
through the grass, which in many places 
was higher than her head. She was late, 
and had left the road to come through the 
tall grass in her haste to get there in 
time. 

By this time the people in the town and 
through the country had become much in- 
terested in the welfare of the litde church 
that had been planted under so many dif- 
ficulties. The tender plant had taken root 
in the wild and uncultivated soil of the dis- 
tant prairie, and, being warmed by the rays 
of the Sun of righteousness, it had flour- 
ished like the cedars of Lebanon. The 
tramp of the buffalo did not injure it ; the 
terrible prairie fires, with flames darting 
thirty feet in the air, could not burn it ; the 
drouth could not wither it, for it was wa- 
tered with tears ; the Indian's arrow could 



206 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

not penetrate It, for it had on the " armor 
of God;" and after the grasshoppers had 
devoured every green thing for many miles 
around, the air was still fragrant with the 
flowers that bloomed on this heavenly 
plant. It caused the wilderness and the 
solitary places to be glad, for in the desert 
it rejoiced and " blossomed like the rose." 
The Indian saw it, and the knife dropped 
from his hand ; the thief saw it, and the 
stolen horse was returned ; the murderer 
saw it, and his weapon was thrown into the 
stream ; and many a weary soul found a 
resting-place beneath the branches of this 
gospel tree. 

The doctor on whose office floor my hus- 
band had slept so many nights deeded 
twelve lots to the trustees of the church. 
He did this only a few days before he died, 
in Quincy, Illinois, and now an effort was 
made to raise money for the purpose of 
building an edifice. Five hundred dollars 
were subscribed, besides town lots and la- 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 20/ 

bor, and arrangements were made to build 
the church the next spring. 

In November my husband went to 
W again to hold a series of meet- 
ings, but was there only a few days when 
he had a serious attack of pleurisy. Dr. 

C advised him to give up preaching 

and go home and rest. 

When he returned, I was very busy as- 
sisting the ladies in preparing for a fes- 
tival on Thanksgiving. It was to be the 

first effort of the kind ever made at C , 

and we were much interested in its success, 
as the proceeds were to be invested in a 
Christmas tree for the Sabbath-school. It 
was very cold on the night of the festival, 
but many more were there than we expect- 
ed. I was very busy all the evening, and 
felt quite happy to see so many present. 

While there I sought an opportunity to 
ask our physician — a young man who had 

been at C only a few months — what 

he thought about the condition of my hus- 



208 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

band's health. His reply was something 
like this: "Your husband is a candidate 
for consumption ; and unless he gives up 
preaching and stays in the house when the 
weather is cold or stormy and takes the 
very best care of himself, he will die in less 
than a year." This unexpected message 
disqualified me for any further duties of 
the evening. In a few moments a lady 
asked me why I was so nervous and what 
made my hands tremble. I told her what 
the doctor had just told me, and to com- 
fort me she said that was the general 
opinion of the people. I left the room as 
soon as possible, and, hastening home, told 
my husband what the doctor had said. He 
replied : " I shall preach the gospel as long 
as I can, and leave the result with God." 
He continued to grow worse, and was not 
able to preach again until the ist of Jan- 
uary. 

On Christmas Eve the schoolhouse was 
crowded ; there was a present for every 



FRUITS OF FAITHFULNESS. 209 

child that belonged to the school, and can- 
dy and popcorn for every one in the house. 
The Indian girl of my class was there ; she 
received a silk necktie, but brought it to 
me and said she did not want it, but she 
wanted a little doll. 

14 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 

ONE cold day I called on a Mrs. 
H . She was a Christian, but 

her husband had been a degraded inebri- 
ate who for several months had been en- 
deavoring to reform. After I had entered 
the house and seated myself in a chair, this 
woman came and dropped her head in my 
lap and wept bitterly. She said her little 
home was gone and they would be turned 
out of doors with no shelter from the cold 
storms of winter. After weeping a long 
time she wiped her eyes with her apron, 
and, rocking herself to and fro, said, 
"What shall I do? My health is not 
good; this is my only dress, and here 
are my children covered with rags. My 

210 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 211 

little home is gone, my husband is again 
intoxicated, and I know not which way to 
turn." 

The house in which they lived had be- 
longed to her, and, as her husband had 
been sober for several weeks, she had 
sold the house with the intention of build- 
ing another on a claim two miles from the 
town. But, instead of going to the railroad 
herself to purchase the lumber, she sent her 
husband, who by this time had so greatly im- 
proved that she imagined he could never 
be intoxicated again. But, once within the 
city, old associates gathered around him, 
and ere he was aware he had fallen a vic- 
tim to the monster that *' biteth like a ser- 
pent and stingeth like an adder." After 
several days he returned, a poor miserable 
drunkard, without a foot of lumber or a 
dollar of his wife's money. After the poor 
fellow became sober he wept bitterly, and 
asked God to forgive him and to give him 
strength to overcome the evil. He soon 



212 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

united with the church, and I have never 
known or heard of his being intoxicated 
since. 

My husband preached nearly every Sab- 
bath through the remainder of the winter, 
but did not attempt to hold a series of 
special meetings. A few united with the 
church ; the congregations were good, and 
the Sabbath-school was very interesting and 
well attended. But I noticed that his 
cough continued, and as the weather be- 
gan to grow warm he commenced to fail 
very fast. I asked the doctor what I could 
do for him : he said there was a possibility 
that a trip to the Rocky Mountains would 
benefit him. I went home and told him we 
would go to Colorado. To this he replied 
that it would never do for us to go among 
strangers with our young family and him-- 
self an invalid. I told him if I had health 
I could make a living for the family in the 
mountains, and we would go, trusting the 
Lord to care for us. 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 213 

The I St of April we bade farewell to our 

friends and started for the town of E , 

where our Presbytery was to meet, neariy 
a hundred miles from our home. Our con- 
veyance was a common farm-wagon drawn 
by a pair of very slow mules. One of the 
elders of the church and his wife accom- 
panied us. 

The first day we came to W • The 

next day we expected to reach the nearest 
railroad town ; but when we were withm 
twelve miles of that town the sun went 
down, and it was soon dark. About ten 
o'clock we missed the road, and found 
ourselves wandering on the prairie. In 
crossing a ravine the mules and wagon 
sank in the mud. After a long time we 
succeeded in extricating the mules, but the 
wheels of the wagon were sunk so deep 
that we could not move them. My hus- 
band started on one of the mules to find 
some one to assist us. The elder and his 
wife and myself pulled dry grass and kept 



214 ^^^ YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

a blazing fire for a beacon-light for him. 
After two or three hours he came back, 
bringing another man, with a team and a 
spade, and by the light of our grass fire 
they succeeded in freeing the wagon from 
the " miry clay." After we were safely out 
of the " Slough of Despond " we went to 
the house of the man who assisted us, and 
remained until morning. It was a log cab- 
in, and we all slept on the floor. 

The next day, at ten o'clock, we reached 
the railroad, and I saw a train of cars for 
the first time in more than six years. I 
also heard a church-bell ring; there was 
music in it, for I had not heard such a 
sound in all these years. 

When we were on our way to N 

we passed through this town, and there 
were then about one hundred inhabitants. 
Lots were selling on the main street for 
twenty-five dollars each. There was no 
railroad, and the town consisted of a few 
little cabins away on the prairie. But now 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 21 5 

all was chanored. It was a railroad town 
of nearly seven thousand inhabitants, with 
solid blocks of brick houses and capacious 
churches, and, instead of lots selling for 
twenty-five dollars, they were worth from 
one thousand to five thousand dollars. 
Here I met several of my friends who 

had lived at C , among others Mrs. 

S , a woman who seemed to scorn and 

laugh at everything of a religious nature 

when we first went to C ; but during 

a night of the manifestation of God's pow- 
er to save, although she was dressed in 
costly garments, she knelt down on the 
floor of the schoolhouse and there ofave 
her heart to the Saviour. She was now 
living in this place, and I was happy to find 
that she was still living in the triumphs of 
faith. I also met a young girl about fifteen 
years of age who was converted during the 

revival at C . I think she was one of 

the sweetest little Christians I ever saw ; 
but she said the people there were not 



2l6 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

very friendly, and she thought It was on 
account of her clothing not being very nice. 
I told her to introduce herself to the min- 
ister, and he would make her feel at home 
in the church and Sabbath-school. 

The next day we went to E , a dis- 
tance of thirty miles, to attend the Pres- 
bytery, but I did not enjoy the exercises 
very much. The ride of one hundred miles 
over the prairie had exhausted me, and the 
hotel where we stopped was nearly a mile 
from the church. 

My husband coughing day and night and 
the sad thought of leaving our friends at 

C and going to a strange land with 

only one hundred dollars to pay all our 
expenses, — these things so burdened my 
mind that I was glad when the Presbytery 
adjourned. 

Here I met Brother M , and asked 

him how his wife was prospering. He said 
she was overrun with company, as whole 
wagon -loads often came from the country 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 21/ 

to spend the day. I said, " Mrs. M 



would not be imposed upon ;" and, as the 
good-natured clergyman laughed heartily, I 
thought of what the rough frontiersman 
who drove the horses when we were just 
from the East and on our way to the bor- 
der said : " You'll soon get used to this if 
you stay in the West." 

In the morning, after taking leave of our 
good elder and his wife, I soon found my- 
self seated in the railway-cars for the first 
time for more than six years. But I was 
not going East to visit my friends, as I had 
often desired, but farther away from the 
home of my childhood. It was long be- 
fore day ; my husband and my children had 
fallen asleep ; the car was but dimly light- 
ed ; a few passengers were half reclining 
in their seats, and, as a thousand sorrow- 
ful thoughts passed through my mind, I 
could not refrain from weeping. 

Shortly after sunrise the conductor pass- 
ed through the car and cried out, " New- 



2l8 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

ton." I wiped my eyes and looked out to 
see the little town where we left the cars 
and began our overland route over six 
years before this time, but I could not see 
it. The dozen little cabins were gone, and 
large brick buildings were standing in their 
places. Several church- spires were point- 
ing toward the heavens. My six years' 
experience seemed to me like the dream 
of a night. 

At the present time C is a fine rail- 
road city surrounded by a beautiful and 
rich agricultural country. The little cabins 
and dug-outs have given way to pleasant 
residences, and many of those who lived 
so long on corn-bread and wild game are 
now able to cut the white loaf and live on 
the rich viands of the country. Where I 
have seen the buffalo, the deer and the 
wolf roaming at large, there are splendid 
roads, over which fine carriages daily roll ; 
and where the deadly serpent stretched his 
form across the wild grapevine and moved 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 219 

noiselessly through the tall grass, stand 
beautiful orchards, fields of waving grain 
and lovely gardens. The little church 
which so long struggled in the midst of 
perils on every side now worships in a 
commodious sanctuary. The railroad not 
only brings a daily mail, but has brought 
down the prices of lumber, clothing, fuel 
and groceries. Excellent crops have this 
year been harvested, and the whole region 
abounds with plenty and prosperity. These 
people have well chosen for their motto Ad 
astra per aspera.^ 

But, while this town and neighborhood 
have mounted to the bright stars of wealth 
through ten thousand difficulties, other 
towns far beyond are springing up, de- 
termined in like manner to go on through 
every difficulty to success and happiness. 
I know that hundreds of these places are 
without the blessed life-giving gospel of the 
Son of God. To-day the Macedonian cry, 

* " Through hardships to the stars." 



220 SIX YEARS ON THE BORDER. 

" Come over and help us," is ringing in the 
ears of the Church from more than a thou- 
sand dark and destitute fields in the great 
West. This soul-penetrating cry comes 
alike from the white man, the Indian and 
the Mexican, and cannot be disregarded 
with impunity. 

While the Church, arrayed in garments 
of white, stands up and invites poor sinners 
to the Saviour, let her also reach out her 
hand and lead the weary and heavy-laden 
to his blessed feet. Who are willing to 
give up the pleasures of this life for Christ 
and his cause, and go among the poor and 
needy to bear afflictions as good soldiers 
of the cross ? Who are willing to give as 
the Lord has prospered them for the sup- 
port of this glorious work ? " No man 
that warreth entangleth himself with the 
affairs of this life ; that he may please Him 
who hath chosen him to be a soldier." 

See the grain all ripe and falling, 
Harvest ready : come and reap, 



THE CLOSE OF THE CONFLICT. 221 

Jesus to his children calling, 
" Simon Peter, feed my sheep." 

Hear the blessed Saviour saying, 

" In my vineyard work to-day ;" 

Hear the frontier settlers praying 

For the word without delay. 

Hear the ciy from Indian nation 
To the rich, the learned, the wise : 
" Here poor Indians need salvation ; 
Bring us Christ, and we'll arise." 

Hear the far-off Christian sister, 
In the land of waving green. 
To her little children whisper, 
" You have ne'er a preacher seen." 

See the drunkard as he tumbles 
In the ditch to moan and die ; 
Who will whisper to that brother, 
« You through Christ may live on high " ? 

Oh, my brother, oh, my sister. 
Can you sit and fold your hands, 

While your days are passing swifter 
Than the river o'er the sands ? 

THE END. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




016 099 938 A #, 





